'Ello, all! Everyone's gearing up for finals, and I'm suspiciously nonchalant-feeling about them. I have a feeling I won't study as much as I probably should, but it'll be okay. The one I'm most worried about (2990) is my first one, so at least I'm knocking it out right away. Thursday is my Cognitive Neuroscience final, and Friday is for Abnormal Psych. A restful weekend, then my French final on Monday. Of course, my first three finals are all at 8 am, which bleh, but at least they'll be done with. The French one's at noon, so I'll have a nice morning to sleep in beforehand.
Even better, Kalan's coming up this Sunday! He's going to stay with me until Tuesday when we pack up the rest of the stuff that Lauren and the fam leave from Sunday and drive home to Columbus. We're going to have to live without television for three days (since neither of us wants to lug that huge thing home), but I think we'll survive. We're going to see Hot Fuzz sometime while we're still in Athens, and I can't wait. It looks awesome.
Fortunately, Lauren put up all the pics from the Vampire Party on her Flickr account, so pop on over there if you want to see the good time had by all. I know I will.
As for knitting, I finished one of the Pomatomus socks a few days ago, as you can see. Excessive clutter behind said sock is a result of having to rearrange the room to debunk the beds, so sorry about that, neat freak readers. But, I'm very happy with how the sock turned out, and the yarn is just beautiful in those scales. I definitely won't be able to finish the second one by the end of today, but at least I got one done, right? Shut up. Let me feel happy!
I took a break from the socks and knit myself a real kickass hat from a pattern I found on Craftster. It was a cinch to make, and it's become my new favorite hat.
Don't I look happy? It stays on really well, too--I haven't once experienced it sliding off my head or anything throughout the day. This style of hat seems like it would be really good for dreads too, for anyone who has them and might be interested. I tweaked the pattern just a bit so it would fit better, and I'm very happy with the results.
As far as current projects go, with my stash currently in Columbus (I'll be home soon, babies. Shh--don't cry), I've got the other Pomatomus and a sunglasses case made out of Lion Brand Cotton Ease in Taupe. I love this yarn; since it's half acrylic, it's a lot loftier than normal cotton yarn. I might even make a shirt or something out of it later.
But for now, I need to buckle down and study. Do I have the will power? I don't know, but I'll try anyway. Wish me luck.
Countdown to Finals Week: Not as Exciting as It Sounds.
All of my scholastic responsibilities are officially done with save my finals next week--and it feels good. Sure, I nearly pulled an all-nighter finishing those damned extra credit problems for 2990 (come on, I didn't think they would take three freaking hours to finish, even if they were all t-tests and one-way ANOVA. Without SPSS.) and cracking open my textbook to study for my Abnormal Psych test (which I started studying for at 2:00 am--problem? I don't have a problem!), but I got it done, dammit. I wish I could provide you with a perfectly good reason why I didn't get down to business until 11:00 pm last night, but alas, I cannot. What was I doing all day yesterday? I got sucked into this blog and I could NOT pull myself away. I will take any excuse to be lazy; it's a sad, sad thing. And now I have another website on which to waste my productive hours.
Unfortunately, I finally admitted to myself that I will not be able to finish Pomatomus by the end of the month. Depressing as it is, I got caught up in way too many side projects to finish in time, not to mention the iminent finals coming up. I'm still on the foot of the first sock, and I'm not picking up any momentum here. Tonight is a good TV night though, so I should be able to knock quite a bit of it out when I get off work. Perhaps if I knit like a madwoman I could get them done, but I don't think I have the energy for it. I must conserve for finals!
I had the pleasure of experiencing not one but two moments of jubilation yesterday. The first was when the music DVDs I ordered last week came in--and a lot earlier than I expected. Bravo, Amazon, bravo. The first one is Porcupine Tree's "Arriving Somewhere," a DVD of their 2005 Deadwing tour. I can't wait to have the free time to watch this baby so I can relive all the great moments from that tour; not to mention cry once more over the fact that they're not coming anywhere near the southeast for the Fear of a Blank Planet tour. Why have you forsaken me, PT? Why?
The second DVD I ordered is a DVD surround sound version of Tweaker's second album 2 a.m. Wakeup Call, my favorite of the two. Each song has it's own little animation/slide show, so I'm looking forward to watching that. Good knitting time, and a really cool way to re-experience an album that I adore. Which reminds me, what the hell is Chris Vrenna doing right now anyway? The Tweaker website hasn't been updated in forever, and there hasn't been any mention of a new album. I really hope there's more to come, because I like what I've been hearing.
I mentioned the Vampire Party in my last entry, but what I didn't talk about was the fact that my camera disappeared over the course of the night. I was especially unhappy about it because I was the only person at the party who took pictures throughout the night, and I really wanted them. So, Collin sent a mass e-mail out to everyone who went to the party asking if anyone had found it/picked it up (we're thinking Lauren accidently put it in the wrong bag when I asked her to put the camera away). And folks, my faith in humanity has been restored: I found out yesterday that someone had responded to Collin's e-mail, and Peter returned the camera to me safe and sound last night. Jubilations! Everything is intact, including the pictures. I might post a few later tonight when I get home; then you will get the full effect of the awesomeness that was the Vampire Party.
So, the Vampire Party on Friday was nothing short of amazing--and it was huge, to boot. A ton of people came, so many that it was hard getting around that house after a while. All the cool people came dressed like different vampires, the best one of all being Randy, who was a Mexican vampire (complete with poncho and sombrero). I was a Lolita-style vampire, and I brought one of my harlequin dolls with me to finish off the look. Radam (aka, RA Adam) came as God, which was still awesome, so we gave him a pass. The costume that took the cake, however, was Peter's friend Kirk, who was an alien vampire. It was amazing.
At the party, I finally got to meet this girl who's in both my Psych 2990 and Cognitive Neuroscience classes; I found out her name is Amanda. We're both going into clinical psychology, which is cool, and it was fun to talk to her. I really should be more social in class; I miss out on meeting cool people otherwise.
By around 1:00 am, the party was at it's hugest, and Lauren, Kirk, and I were ready to go. Peter dropped Lauren and I off at O-House and took Kirk home after that. Turns out the police broke up the party not too long after, so we left at a good time. Overall, it was a great party, and I'm glad I was able to make it.
The weekend, like most of my weekends, has been time for recuperation from the week's stresses. Peter and I went on an adventure yesterday to find a Korean food store for snacks, but after nearly an hour of searching (and driving into Watkinsville), we called it quits and went to Publix instead. Even though we ultimately couldn't find what we wanted, it was a fun adventure nonetheless. I spent the rest of the night knitting on Pomatomus, which is turning out great after a little surgery on Friday.
What does knitting surgery look like, you ask? Well, it looks a little like this:
A few days ago, I was knitting the gusset for Pomatomus and decided that I was so awesome, I didn't need to look at the chart anymore. What I didn't realize was that Chart B deviates from Chart A in the middle, so after five rows of screwing the pattern up, I decided to double-check my progress. Lo and behold, I fucked up the lace part of the sock. I really didn't want to have to re-knit the stockinette and the decreases, so I decided to try another method I had learned. Instead of frogging the entire thing, you isolate the incorrect part of the knitted item and only rip that part back, leaving you with loops from the ripped-back rows. So, I ripped back the five rows of incorrect lacework, labelled them, and pinned them back so I could arrange them without tangling them up. I unpinned them individually and paperclipped them together so they could hang back, once again, without tangling. Finally, I took up each loop and, following the chart closely, I reknit each row until all the loops were knitted back into the sock.
The results? Can't even tell I messed up in the first place. I love this correction method, and I'm definitely going to use it more in the future. There's nothing I hate more than having to rip back a ton of knitting to correct one thing, which is why, if the error's small enough, I usually leave it as a testament to how much I've improved later. But when you fuck up five rows of lacework, it's pretty obvious, and correction was in order.
What's more, I was listening to Porcupine Tree's newest album Fear of a Blank Planet as I was fixing Pomatomus. It was the most badass background music for intensive knitting surgery ever, I tell you. Also, the album itself is amazing and exceeded all of my expectations, so check it out. I'll give a more in-depth review of it later.
I've got work tonight, so Lauren, Peter, and I are going to Choo-Choo's for dinner at five. There's a bibimbob there with my name on it, so later, folks.
'Tis Student Worker Appreciation Day at Tate, and I'm feelin' the love. Nothing like free food all day long. Whoop!
What's more, a bunch of people are watching a PSV v Liverpool game in front of me, much to my fangirly delight. Makes me miss the World Cup like nuts. If only I was watching Bayern Munich play, it'd be perfect, yo. In fact, these are the same guys who turned on the soccer game the last time. Those guys are automatically awesome.
Tests are starting to round out now, which is nice. Two more for Abnormal Psych, Cognitive Neuroscience, and Psych 2990, and one more paper for French. My next Neuroscience exam is this Thursday, which hopefully I will so well on. I'm taking hours out of work to go to the review, so I better do well, dammit.
I got the new Silverchair album on Sunday, and I don't have enough time right now to express my thoughts on it. A full in-depth review of Young Modern will be posted soon, but right now the two words to describe it off the top of my head are "Dissociatves" and "crazy." Seriously, that album screams crazy. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but I'll get into that mess later.
There was no hot water this morning when I needed to take a shower, so I didn't appreciate that. Of course, the hot water came back by the time Lauren rolled out of bed, but whatever. I see how it is, O-House. Water problems up the wazoo in that place.
No progress on the yoke pullover lately, but I've been knitting Cookie A.'s Pomatomus socks full-steam ahead for my April sock-along socks. I'm using the peacock-colored sock yarn I bought in Atlanta, and it looks really good in the scale-pattern. Pictures will follow soon!
I'm relieved that I have only one more paper to write for French; M. Crawford's comments are so subjective, it drives me nuts. He's almost as bad as my English 1102 prof back in my freshman year. It's going to be something involving the movie we're watching in class right now, "Bon Voyage"--which I'm enjoying so far, actually. Gerard Depardieu! Even if he's getting kind of old. Pauvre homme.
Now I must run my ass over to the Psych building and get my Psych 2990 lab over with for the week. It's an easy as pie lab, so I'm happy for the padding it provides to my 2990 grade. Tchao!
Je t'ai croisée
Un samedi soir
Et j'ai jeté sur ta silhouette
Une poignée d'épices colorées
Mon but était clair
T'envoûter
Tout en restant
Libre-moi et libre-toi
Car le roi de l'amour
N'a plus besoin d'esclaves
Adieu, adieu la nuit
Adieu tristesse, adieu les larmes
Je ne suis plus celui
Que tu as connu, plus le même
Ô bel enfant
Qui a tant pleuré
Adieu tout est fini
Adieu les larmes, adieu la nuit
Et le soleil de minuit a brillé pour nous
Jusqu'à l'arrivée du jour
Alors nous nous sommes séparés
Comme déjà saturés des délices du futur
Et j'ai marché seul
Guidé par ton ombre
J'ai traversé la ville déserte
Encore étincelante
Du voyage des rêveurs
Je t'ai croisé un samedi soir
Et déjà j'aimais l'odeur de ton rire
Et le soleil de minuit a brillé pour nous
Jusqu'à l'arrivée du jour
