That went way too fast.

STITCHES! Yeah, we went. Again. I think that’s the fifth or sixth year in a row. And guess what? This year, Rick Mondragon (flamboyantly gay and rather gross editor of Knitters’ Magazine – no, I’m not a homophobe, I promise – he is just gross, making really sick jokes and stuff) actually remembered me, despite my having been in the student fashion show every year I’ve been there and even winning the $100 Editor’s Choice one year! *sigh*

Well, can you guess what I showed at the fashion show?!

Yeah, I FINALLY finished that mystery shawl. And it’s gorgeous!

The color’s best in the first one. Specs:

Pattern: Goddess Knits Anniversary Mystery Shawl – Mandala

Needles: US 3, Addi lace needles (wonderful contraptions, them)

Yarn: Helen’s Lace by Lorna’s Laces, about 2.2 skeins or so

Now I’m starting other gift knitting, despite the temptation of the two (yes, only two!) projects’ worth of yarn for myself I got at Stitches:

Manos silk blend for a scarf like this:

And Habu for a simple pullover thing:

Yeah, apparently that’s enough. Incredible, huh?

Classes? Heck yes!

Friday: Argyle Socks in the Round with Suzann Thompson – really fun and a pretty nifty technique to make seamless argyles, although a bit tedious. Product:

I gave it to my mom as a glasses case because she forgot hers and was using a sock that she brought to wear on a foot…and I knew I was never going to make the other one of these because the proportions are all weird and it would never fit anybody. Plus, the gauge is a bit wonky.

Saturday: Lapland Hand Garments with Susanna Hansson (who is a wonderful teacher and hilarious) – seriously cool and gorgeous technique, but really frustrating for me because of the tiny needles making my hands and wrists really sore and giving me a headache. I didn’t get very far on this project:

But it was supposed to look like this:

And now back to the frenzy of homework, college apps, and hopefully finishing that Intel application in time…

P.S. This was the assignment from my glass teacher for missing class:

Even though it was a total lie. :D

In which I come out of my stupor for a funny movie.

My sister recently introduced me to the failblog, a hilarious site with all sorts of ‘fail,’ ‘pwned,’ etc. moments. Here’s today’s – briliant!

By the way, I have been alive and knitting. My Ravelympics project (Colinette Absolutely Fabulous Throw kit) is turning out not to be as big a challenge as I thought – I’m over halfway done already. I think I’ll tack some other stuff onto the end – like finish at least through Clue 4 of my mystery shawl or something.

Work has been interesting. We’ve (meaning my friends there and I) been ’sprucing up our nerd den,’ as we call it. Phrase inspired by this, if you’re curious. We made a ‘garland’ out of a chain of paper clips and hung it in our cubicle, tacked up 24 cards all over one panel, and picked some flowers, stuck them in a water bottle, covered the water bottle with masking tape, and wrote ‘pretty flowers’ on it with an arrow. I think that last one merits a picture, albeit a crappy cellphone one:

Oh yeah, and I have been working a bit at work, too. Even though it’s very challening to fight my Sporcle addiction to do so. I can list all 118 elements on the Periodic Table now! Working on being able to do them in numerical order. I can list every thing mentioned in ‘We Didn’t Start the Fire’ in order, though. *begins to hum*

I feel so badass.

Road trip journal

YET ANOTHER REMINDER: Pleasepleaseplease enter my contest!! Remember that you have a chance to win even without donating – just by spreading the word! Although the prizes are more probable and better if you donate to this totally great cause…

Here I shall document my road trip around New England to visit various colleges. Pretend I posted them as separate daily entries…

Day 1, Sunday: The trip from home to Williamstown was uneventful, besides for about ten pages of history notes being taken, and my not having to drive because of taking said notes. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it), I think I have enough work to last for all the hours of this trip, and so won’t have to drive. But won’t get to knit much either. Also, on the trip up, the possibility of making the Knitters’ Pilgrimage to Webs was raised…and I am excited.

We checked into the motel, where a very nice Swedish guy recommended a restaurant and showed us a map of the town – which is pretty much the campus. I didn’t realize that, but it’s kinda neat, methinks. We went to dinner at Spice Root, a nice Indian place. My mom got carded when she tried to get wine! It might’ve just been because it’s a college town and all, but it was still pretty funny. The food was really good – I had my Indian standard, chicken tikka, and something new and interesting – ginger lemonade. It was actually pretty good – the ginger wasn’t too overwhelming, just enough to make the lemonade taste a little different. On the walk back to the motel, we stopped at ‘the ephporium’ (the Ephs is the name of the Williams sports teams for some reason…) because we saw a sign outside proclaiming ‘gelato,’ but it turned out to be some Haagen Dasz in a cooler…ah well. However, in there, I saw this, which was amusing:

Notice how they all recommend classy stuff like ciabatta, and then Lara recommends Ring Pops. I’d like to meet Lara…

Day 2, Monday: We spent the morning touring Williams – mascot: a purple cow! That’s pretty nifty. It was a really appealing place – apparently, the food’s excellent. Oh yeah, and it’s really rigorous academically and gorgeous and all that, too. This afternoon, we went to Amherst – we took a tour and went to an information session. The info session repeated a lot of what our enthusiastic tour guide told us, but was still really interesting. Amherst’s main appealing points for me were their membership in the Five College Consortium, so you can take classes at any of the other four nearby schools (with free bus service) and you can also get books out of their libraries; and their open curriculum – there are no course requirements! The food, however, didn’t get quite as good reviews. So I don’t know if I’d be able to choose between those two right now – b/c you can get library books from like a gazillion different colleges from Williams, too…and they have a cool mascot…and good food…

Amherst: option of courses at other schools, slightly closer to civilization, open curriculum

Williams: better food, purple cow, better chance at single dorms, one-month intensive study during winter term

They have pretty much everything else in common, including a fierce rivalry, school colors, total enrollment, general rigor, campus-wide wifi, etc…

More significantly – we went to Webs! It was pretty amazing – it’s huge! I saw a bunch of new yarns and stuff, but the coolest thing was that they have pretty much every color of all the yarns they stock, which makes for a great selection and incredible-looking displays. However, I resisted almost all temptation (and believe me, there was a LOT) and only bought one $2 pattern. Huzzah!

Tomorrow, we’re heading to Hanover and Dartmouth to tour the college and visit my cousin who goes there – we’ll probably take him out to lunch.

Day 3, Tuesday:Dartmouth was nice – about three times bigger than the ones we’ve seen so far, but it was nice to catch up with my cousin. We took him to a little place in Hanover for brunch/lunch, and he gave us an informal tour of the campus, during which we got a bit lost and ended up in the business school when we were looking for engineering. Fortunately, it was a nice day, so it was fine. Dartmouth is pretty in a much more majestic sort of way than the others – the buildings mostly match, there’s a big green, etc. Oh, but funny story – Dartmouth was founded originally to educate Native Americans, but for the first 200 years or so failed miserably. Then when they got this new president they dedicated all this money, and now apparently have a bunch of native students. With these millions of dollars of endowment, they wanted to create some kind of monument to this. With all that money, this is what they managed to do:

A pile of rocks in front of the admissions office.

Between splitting with my cousin and going to the info session, we got to wander around Hanover, such as it is, a bit. We went to a great Barnes and Noble and I got Maximum Ride 4, of which Alethia and I will have joint custody – she’s been looking for it for AGES. And by ages, I mean the week+ since it’s come out…The info session was not so fascinating, though – I’m glad I had knitting.

Then we drove up to Portland. We’re staying with relatives there and visiting Bowdoin (for some reason, pronounced BO-den) tomorrow. They have a pretty lighthouse there:

Day 4, Wednesday: Bowdoin was really cool! Apparently, they’re rated top in the nation for their food, and the campus was really pretty, in a more Amhersty way. Also, they’ve got Mathematica on their computers! Nerdfest! Honestly, I have no idea how I’ll ever decide on a college – all the ones we’ve visited so far seem too good to be true – like little utopias, where everyone there is taking classes and such because they want to, and they all actually care. And the general atmosphere is so cool.

On the way back, we visited Spunky Eclectic’s brick and mortar store – fantabulosity. I came out with some roving (I’m picturing socks) and very nice silk lace yarn (shawl):

And hanging out with relatives has been cool – my grandma, uncle, and two cousins are here (the aunt’s out of town, getting in tonight).

The story of the day – I have a much stronger kinship with cats now. My little cousin (third-grade) was giving me the grand tour of their yard after my mom and I went running, and she somehow convinced me to climb one of their trees – she wanted to see how high I could get. I was pretty good at climbing trees when I was smaller, and I was still pretty good today, except maybe thirty feet up, one of the branches I had used to get up broke. I saw ways to get higher, but decided against it – I didn’t even know how I was going to get down. It took awhile, my mom and cousin coaching, and my uncle’s reassurances that at least it was a nice day and he could send up some food for dinner, but I eventually got down. I didn’t, because there were pine needles everywhere, but I felt like kissing the ground. Seriously. For a bit there, I was worried we’d have to call the fire department or something…

We’re staying in Maine tonight, too, then driving back down to Boston to see Haaahvard and MIT – neither of which I can really see myself attending but I want to see anyway.

Day 5, Thursday: Well, we made it to Harvard and had a great tour there – I liked it a lot more than I expected – they’ve got so many sweet study abroad programs and such. But I’m really bad at Boston, and so we didn’t make it to MIT in time for the tour. We’re going to check that out tomorrow before heading home.

We also visited two knitting stores in Cambridge – we’ve decided that we should try to see as many knitting stores as we do colleges…teehee.

Day 6, Friday: Home! Final score – colleges beat knitting stores 6-5. We visited one more store (Colorful Stitches in Lenox) on the way home, but since we saw MIT this morning, colleges still won. MIT was pretty cool, but I still can’t see myself going there. I just like the atmosphere of the small liberal artsy places better for some reason.

I did end up having to drive for a bit, but it was mostly highway and cruise control, so it was okay.

P.S. If anybody watched the iPhone keynote, or probably any other Apple introduction of a new product, THIS should be most amusing.

Don’t even THINK about it…

Only in New York, right?

Anyway – the trip was pure fantabulosity. And, as promised, I have many pictures. Not as promised, I haven’t yet finished the raglan. But there was knitting accomplished on the trip! More on that later.

First we went to MoMa…that floor was sooo cool…

And I was easily amused in the store…

A face…on a fly swatter.

And salt and pepper shakers that WON’T fall over, no matter WHAT you do.

That night, we went to the opera. We had horrible seats though, because it’s so expensive, so the actual show wasn’t that amazing for us. Also, we got back into the hotel past midnight, and because it does take a certain amount of noise to unpack even just enough to go to bed, we got complaints about being ‘rowdy teenagers’ and crap. Ah well.

The next day, we arose bright and early and went to the Tenement Museum, which is really cool but I had already seen, so was pretty boring for me. Then we went to South Street Seaport, which was really fun. We checked out random stores, had lunch, and I found this thing:

Alethia’s hat had to be involved somehow. Here’s a movie of it:

It was sooo fun. For dinner that night, we went to Ellen’s Stardust Diner, where the waitstaff sing and jump up on tables and stuff, so that was fun. Then we went to Blue Man Group, which was AMAZING! I got my ticket autographed…

The last day, we spent the morning wandering about Manhattan, and then we went home. Here are some other pics from the wanderage:

The bottom right is actually from the opera.

And my foray into lace was a success! Here’s what I accomplished, along with some other boring and not picture-worthy knitting (yet) over many hours of bus ride. Granted, I also played MarioKart and did other less productive and wholesome things, too…

The only obscenity about this lace is that it involves knitting SEVEN stitches together at several points.

Needless to say, I’m completely exhausted, but still have to teach and then volunteer at the school auction tonight. Then tomorrow, I have an interview for a summer internship (hope I get it!!), I might go snowboarding, and then I have rehearsal for the violin improv trip I’m leaving for this Friday. Does sleep come into the picture anywhere?

P.S. My Google Reader had 56 posts when I got home, and I’m still crawling through them – so I might not have read everyone’s latest yet.

When pigs get laryngitis…

Do they become disgruntled?

-joke courtesy of my friend. I thought it was funny.

Anyway, happy Pi Day, everyone! Have some pie:

Yeah, I prefer apple, too. Or carrot. But this’ll do.

Anyways…yarny stuff! An LYS is having a moving sale, and despite only intending to buy two skeins, I was coerced into buying a sweater’s worth of gorgeous Silky Wool, the color of which reminds me of the famous Tuareg of mmmmalabrigo. Doesn’t it look similar?

It was truly challenging to even begin to capture the true glory of this color. Especially when you get a sweater’s worth for under $60! AND when your mom pays because she knows you’ll let her steal it sometimes!

Also, a sleeve!

The second one is going more quickly because I’m copying my previous shaping rather than figuring it out. I’m getting pretty sick of this sweater and have sooo many cool projects lined up, that I really want to finish it soon…

Team in Training goes decently well…although we had to ask for an extension on our fundraising – 25% of the funds were supposed to be in by today, but we got a one-week extension. It’s still going to be tight if we even make it, so I again implore you or anybody you know to please donate! (Link in sidebar) We sent out about a bajillion letters and I’m selling doughnuts at school to raise money, but it’s still coming fairly slowly compared to the total whopping $9,600 we need to get in the end. I think we’re a bit over $1,000 at the moment, and we need $2,400 by next Friday. Agh!

…because sometimes I feel like I have no life.

80% Barack Obama
78% Bill Richardson
76% Hillary Clinton
76% John Edwards
73% Chris Dodd
69% Dennis Kucinich
68% Joe Biden
66% Mike Gravel
45% Rudy Giuliani
41% Mitt Romney
38% John McCain
34% Tom Tancredo
30% Fred Thompson
29% Mike Huckabee
25% Ron Paul

2008 Presidential Candidate Matching Quiz

Teehee. I thought I was a little bit more moderate-leaning, but clearly not.

What Be Your Nerd Type? Your Result: Science/Math Nerd (Absolute Insane Laughter as you pour toxic chemicals into a foaming tub of death!) Well, maybe you aren’t this extreme, but you’re in league with the crazy scientists/mathmeticians of today. Very few people have the talent of math and science is something takes a lot of brains as well. Thank whosever God you worship, or don’t worship, so thank no deity whatsoever in your case, for you people! Most of us would have died off without your help.
Musician
Social Nerd
Literature Nerd
Artistic Nerd
Gamer/Computer Nerd
Drama Nerd
Anime Nerd
What Be Your Nerd Type? Quizzes for MySpace

No surprises here…although the artistic might’ve been a bit higher if there had been fiber art/crafty type questions. (EDIT: WordPress doesn’t seem to like the coding of the results for that one, but they’re presented in descending order, and yes, anime IS zero)

These quizzes were actually kind of interesting, to tell the truth.

In other news…

My sister’s hamster Java died awhile ago :(. Today she went to Petco to get a new critter to be a pal to Tesla (teensy hamster so named because she’s really hyper). She was going to get a guy and name it Edison to have a theme going on, but the lady there knew her and her devotion (obsession, really) with animals, small critters particularly, and she offered her the option to take home (for free) a 3-week old albino hamster that isn’t even weaned yet, but had been brought in without its mother. Addie’s so excited. She has to feed this little girl (we think it’s a girl) goat milk twice a day for a week or so, and I think it’s making her ambitions of becoming a vet come alive a bit. All fifth grade girls go through a phase where they want to be a vet, I think – but I don’t think my beloved sister is going to come out of it…

No pictures of the new critter yet, but trust me – she’s TINY. Literally about an inch and a half long. Anyways, one more quiz. This one creeps me out, no kidding…

What Is Your Name Supposed To Be? Your Result: Rachel Rachel- Hi Rachel, you probably the odd one out in your group, the different one. But thats good! You have your own taste and vibe, and your probably really cool! Thats why your personality name, is defenitley Rachel!
Carly
Alyssa
Brooke
What Is Your Name Supposed To Be? Quizzes for MySpace

How weird is THAT?

Ski trip!

I’m back from the ski trip, and it was awesome! As all ski trips inevitably are, of course. I had (term stolen from Yarn Harlot) camnesia for most of the trip, coupled with an unwillingness to bring the camera on the actual slopes with me, so there are but a few pictures…

We stayed in the charming Garnet Hill Lodge, in a building called The Birches – so named presumably for the birch trees surrounding it.

There was fine dining there (the highlight of which was the deserts…homemade pies…strawberry shortcake…)…

The first day of skiing was pretty grungly (word invented by my sister), because it was a ridiculous 45 degrees outside…wet snow is icky. But then it got a TON colder, so they could make snow, and conditions rapidly improved over the next three days, although the last half-day we skied (yesterday) was obscenely cold (something like 5 degrees, I think, with a windchill below zero), almost to the point of unpleasantness unless one was constantly moving and had plenty of breaks. I did some snowboarding and skiing, and am well-bruised now. Mostly from the snowboarding, but there was one memorable skiing fall off of a funbox. Why do I let my brother convince me to try these things?

On the way back, I saw this in a convenience store, which I found amusing:

Confused?

I think I had something else to say, but I can’t remember, so that only leaves my tag from AJ to post seven interesting/unusual/weird/random things about myself. Here goes:

1. I lovelovelove puzzles of almost any type. My favorites include NYT crosswords, sudoku, killer sudoku (sort of a cross between sudoku and kakuro), kakuro, and logic puzzles.
2. I can’t STAND pompous people. As a corollary, if someone even implies that I’m bragging/stuck-up/anything of that nature, I am very offended.
3. I don’t get embarrassed very easily – I do, however, laugh at myself a healthy amount. I suppose that here I should tell the story of one moment that embarrassed even me. Back in the horror days of Hebrew school, I used to carpool with my friend. One day, leaving temple, I saw her dad’s car, so I walked down, assuming she was following me, and jumped in. It wasn’t until I had closed the door, buckled my seatbelt, and greeted her father that I realized that it wasn’t her dad’s car at all, but had a man in the front seat that I’d never seen in my life. I muttered something to him, leapt out of the car, and ran back up to hiss at my laughing friend for not stopping me.
4. I tend to be very shy around new people. With my friends/family, I often can’t shut up, but if talking to someone for the first time, I find it very difficult to start a conversation.
5. I like making turkey and mayo sandwiches and adding those little hot cinnamon candies. It tastes really good. I also dip my fish sticks in cottage cheese with paprika. Yeeeah.
6. I can be a little bit OCD sometimes. I’m particular about where I sit (but only in some situations), and occassionally about symmetry. For example, if I’m sitting in a car at night, I hate it when a car goes by in the other direction and the headlights shine more in my left eye than my right.
7. My favorite color is green – almost any shade of green, but especially sage green or olive green.

I now tag…*drumroll*…

1. Rainberry Knits
2. Gonzomama Knits
3. Spin, Knit, Purl, and Be Happy
4. The Adventures of Jaxypants and the Yarn Dragon
5. The Happy College Knitter
6. Zeitgeist
7. a Friend to knit with (who posts the most amazing cookie recipes ever)

Some fun links for you…

I wasted some quality time browsing random websites, and here are the fruits of my labors (the first few pictures just speak for themselves, but click the images if you like)…

From seller: “If like us, you suffer from the almost constant disappointment of holy effigies failing to miraculously appear to you during breakfast, well, fret no more, because help is at hand.”
*chortle*

This one I would actually consider buying. Awhile ago, thinking it would help me get up, I bought an alarm clock called ‘Sonic Boom.’ It comes with a vibrating disc that goes under your pillow to literally shake you awake. My theory was that if it were more irritating, it would wake me up. Instead, it made me press the snooze button sooner. Alas.

I am laughing hysterically right now.

You will NEVER guess what happened to me.

My English teacher (a slightly creepy old man who looks like a hobo) called me because his wife had an urgent question about knitting! I just think that’s hilarious and felt the need to immortalize it bloggily.

Turned out she had taught someone (her son’s girlfriend) to knit and wanted to get her yarn to make a scarf but wasn’t aware that you can get inexpensive yarn at an actual yarn shop. She was going to go to Michaels’! *gasp* Yes, I am a yarn elitist. I don’t like acrylic yarn with no dye lots. Shoot. Me. Now. So I kindly explained to her that if she just went back to the LYS and told them what she needed and what her price range was, they’d help her.

*laughs again* My ENGLISH TEACHER called me about KNITTING! Teehee.

Just goes to show you what happens when you knit in class, I guess…