Saturday, December 18, 2010

Stitch Markers

I really need some....

I've switched projects from the mysterious thing I mentioned a few posts ago to some fingerless gloves, which, of course, require increasing for the thumb gusset. And I'm using little pieces of paper to keep track of my stitches. How ghetto.

So I was searching stitch markers on etsy and came across these:

From beadpassion's etsy shop





Aren't they adorable!! She has other ones too. I definitely think I need to get my hands on these as soon as possible... Maybe I'll order them as a Christmas present to myself. Knitting with these would take the awesome level to a whole new level of awesome.

Sunday, December 12, 2010

I did it!

Well apparently guilt-induced guilt is very effective!

I did finally get around to studying last night (not very much, but hey it's something). I just finished the exam about 2 hours ago. And it died under my pencil... it begged for mercy... but I spared no question! Mwahahahahahahahahahahahahaha! And I knitted... unfortunately it's for Christmas so I can't really give any details. But I'm about one pattern repeat away from completion!

Here is a picture of the yarn, though. I'll get pictures of the FO up after Christmas, but for now this will do.
And I shall call it squishy and it shall be my squishy...
For those of you wondering, this deliciousness is Diamond Yarn Luxury Baby Alpaca Sport (link goes to Ravelry). And oh boy they aren't kidding when they say luxury. It's so soft and nice and I'm sorely tempted to keep this present for myself but I won't, because that would just be silly  bad probably not so good.

Part of the reason I got so much done yesterday knitting-wise was because I was watching TV at the same time. I find it really, really difficult to just sit down and knit, unless the pattern is really complicated or something. This project I'm working on now is dead simple, mostly stockinette... and so it doesn't really need my full attention. Last night I knit and watched episodes of Full Metal Alchemist, which sounds is really nerdy. My defense is that my boyfriend started watching it and recommended it to me. Haha. I can never seem to get motivated enough to "just knit"... although I've got my eye on some really pretty lace patterns, so I might need to break that habit. I knit in cars, on buses, in class, while watching TV... but hardly ever just by itself. I'm currently hunting around for an audio book copy of WoT book one The Eye of The World to see if maybe I could listen to reading and knit at the same time. I generally much prefer to read a book myself, but I'll discuss that in another post, I guess.
I promised pictures of fresh baked bread a few days back, and I have a confession to make... I totally ate all the bread before taking pictures of it. Instead you get a conciliatory photo of these really cool penguin crackers President's Choice has started making. President's Choice, for all you non-Canadians out there, is a supermarket brand that makes some really tasty stuff*.

Trying to make love work despite a cable needle chasm... much more charming than those stupid Red Bull commercials.

Anyhow, lovelies, I shall post again at a later date. (Tomorrow, probably, but saying "at a later date" is more suspenseful)

* I am in no way affiliated with PC. 
 

Saturday, December 11, 2010

Found a new blog! And Guilt-induced Guilt

Plus side: I have just discovered Half-Assed Knit Blog, which is absolutely hilarious and also awesome.

Down side: After reading her knitting goodness, I have been dragged down into a mire of guilt which reminds me that I have:
a) not knitted anything in a while and thus am facing certain likely doom for Christmas present time 
b) not studied for my socioanthropologie de la famille exam which is tomorrow. 
c) spent all day in my pjs (irrelevant but STILL)


GAH. 

Studying will commence now! And I will knit something tonight!! *puts on determined hat*.

Brown Ajah, apparently

According to the several tests I just wasted time with took, I'd be a Brown. That really doesn't surprise me, actually. I'm not really suited to Green... I'm not a warrior all the time (although, if I were in Randland I'd definitely use all my knowledge to fight the DO), and Blue's manipulative ways doesn't appeal to me. White is too cold and impassive, and I get the sneaking suspicion that I have too much of a temper to be a Grey. Now that saidin's been cleansed, there's really no sense in choosing Red. I would be a Yellow, except I think they're too specialized, and I would want to do more.

I'd definitely choose the Brown. I'd been like a more-awesome Verin, except not dead and not Darkfriend.
That said, given RJ's love of a good mind-fuck, I'm not entirely convinced that Verin's really dead. We shall see.
http://quizilla.teennick.com/quizzes/6027133/which-ajah-are-you

Towers of Midnight (Unorthadox Book Review)

(Spoiler Alert!)

For those not in the know, Robert Jordan's newest Wheel of Time novel Towers of Midnight came out in November. I was saving up to buy it for my birthday, and I finished it a few days ago. It's been stuck in my head ever since.

The first time I picked up a WoT book was at a book fair in seventh grade. Lemme see... that would be in 2002. It was The Great Hunt... and I've been reading WoT ever since. Although I, like most other fans, are well aware of the flaws in Jordan's writing, I still find these books addicting. They've changed in flavour just a bit since Jordan died and Sanderson took over, but I still get the same thrill, reading them.

Towers of Midnight was both awesome and confusing. The time lines for each character group (those surrounding the three ta'veren, as always, and then the groups around the SuperGirls), were slightly out of sync, which was kinda odd. And there are some things that I just don't understand. Like the title. WHY was it called Towers of Midnight!? The towers are in Seanchan, and this book barely has any Seanchan in it at all! It kinda felt like reading an essay without a thesis, lol. Which was kinda disappointing... I love Tuon's character, and I can't wait to see what happens with her and Mat, who is another of my favourite characters.

And oh, poor Mat! I guess now we know what "One half of the light of the world" means. I'm still burning with curiousity to find out what the other half of the answer means "to save the world"... but I knew Moiraine would be back and now she is. Interesting.

I loved Perrin's parts in this book... last book I skimmed everything to get back to Mat, but this book I really enjoyed watching Perrin. And the hammer forging was just so cool. I'm also glad that Galad has taken over the Whitecloaks... hopefully they stop being so looney and get their act together.

But as much as I loved it, this book didn't really answer any questions. We didn't really hear anything from the Seanchan, Mordeth (who I'm convinced will turn up and screw over somebody yet), any of the still living Forsaken except for Graendal and Mesaana (and Graendal's fate remains a mystery), Shaidar Haran... really anyone on the bad side. Aside from Egwene's defeat of Mesaana, Perrin's fight with Graendal's Trollocs, and the battles in Saldaea, we don't really see any activity from the Darkfriends or Forsaken at all. I feel like this book was probably just to wrap up some loose ends (like Perrin and Slayer) whilst setting the stage for the LB... but I feel like I'm missing a lot of information.

I'm going to have to re-read the series now... Although I've been reading these books since I was 12, I only own The Great Hunt, The Gathering Storm, and now Towers of Midnight. I'll have to round up the others so I can read them, and I think that these books are worth buying, finally. I've read them all via the library, but I'm realizing that if I owned them I would re-read them enough times to make it worth the price.

And, in a final blow of nerdiness, I'm seriously considering making an Ajah shawl, so I can wear it while re-reading and feel awesome. If I can find a pattern I think would fit, I'm totally doing it. If I get into the Harry Potter House Cup on Ravelry, I think I'm going to submit an Ajah shawl as an O.W.L.

The final question then... what Ajah would I be?

Friday, December 10, 2010

And now just 3 more to go...

So, first take home handed in = check.
second exam written = check.

I think it went okay. I am very happy I did some reading just before the test, otherwise I know I would have gotten at least a few questions wrong. I know there are questions that I didn't answer exactly the way she wanted them answered, but I'm not sure exactly how far away I was from the perfect response. I suppose I will see come January.

My next exam's on Sunday, which means all day tomorrow is study study study time! I probably should be studying today too, but I can't bring myself to do it. I'm tired of exams, and they've only just started.

The only good thing about having exams all squished together like this is that I'll have a lot less to worry about come Sunday afternoon.

One Exam Down

That's right folks... I have successfully completed my first exam!! Submitted the electronic copy of my essay just now, Submitting a hard copy in about an hour. I'm so glad to be done that one.

Bad news, though... second exam begins at 2:30 today. I'm not sure about it... it could either go really well or really horribly. I've been holding consistently at around a 70% for all the other examinations (except for one that I got perfect on! Woot! Too bad it was only worth 10%). That is kinda comforting, because it makes me think that I'll probably be able to pull off a 70 in the exam as well. I'm still pretty nervous though. This professor (Sylvie Grosjean)is really excellent... but her exam questions tend to be pretty specific, so if you don't know the answer you really don't know it. It's hard to fake it on her tests. I'm just hoping I won't have to.

I'll let the world know how it goes after.

Oh, and I'll post some bread photos soon... it was delicious.

Thursday, December 9, 2010

Gingerbread Lattes, Bread, and the Studying continues...

So I'm taking a little break from the Communication Theories take home exam (Oh P.S. CMN3109-- go die) to post. I forgot that I started a blog yesterday, hence the no post thing. Oops.

So I have not been knitting Christmas presents, despite my best intentions to knit lines (hah sounds like a drug) as mini study breaks. Instead, I have been baking! Made a loaf of bread yesterday using the famous 5-minutes a day bread recipe... it was okay. This isn't the first time I've made bread (and I don't really understand yeastophobes). It was worth trying, I guess, and the crust was nice, but pretty bland and very dense. I found it a little bit too salty, as well. I think the density was my fault though, not the recipe's. But still. So today I'm trying a different recipe, just a slight twist on this recipe here. I'm hoping it will be more flavourful. Although I think it's impossible for it not to be, with the addition of a tad bit of whole wheat flour (just a quarter cup or so, and that's my modification to the recipe), sugar, milk and butter as opposed to just flour-water-salt-yeast. It's almost done its first rise, so I will (hopefully) be popping it out of the oven in two hours or so.

The thing about bread-making is that it doesn't really take too much effort, but it does require you to have at least 3 hours or so just around the house. I rarely make bread because of this. I've just realized though, that laundry takes me about the same amount of time and I almost never leave when I'm doing that (publicly shared washer-dryer), so there's no reason why I can't make bread too. Perhaps at the same time as laundry. Although not today. Laundry and I had a bit of a chat and it agreed to wait until Sunday.

As I was writing my timer for the first rise went off. It hasn't risen as much as I expected it would but, soldiering on, I've shaped it, and it does look like a pretty nice loaf. I'm thinking maybe the lack of rise is due to my addition of whole wheat flour. But oh wells. Back into the slightly-warmer-than-room-temperature oven to rise some more. I'm actually finding that the bread making process is making some really relaxing study breaks. I'll have to keep that in mind.

Second thing on the puttering-in-the-kitchen-avoiding-essay list of today is the making of Steph's (over at a Year of Slow Cooking) gingerbread latte. And Oh My is it ever good. Next time I make it I might cut the ginger just a little. It's very gingery... the original recipe calls for 2tsp of ginger to every 4 cups of milk, and if you know your ginger you'll know that that's more than it sounds. I was feeling cautious when I was preparing this so I gingerly cut back... using only 1 1/2 tsp (haha, see what I did there)... and it's still pretty strong. But SO GOOD. I'm gonna be up all night drinking these, I don't have any de-caf coffee (what's the point of coffee if it's decaf!! I guess now I know). I'm definitely going to try Steph's pumpkin spice latte next. MMMM.

Anyways. I really should get back to Edward Said's impact on the perception of media representations of Muslims post-9/11. Ugh. No I did not choose this topic. But I still have 5 more pages to write before the end of the night. :)

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

And on today's menu... Stress Breakfast :(

Today, I have a feeling, is just gonna be one of those days...

Woke up with the immediate knowledge that I have only about a million things to do and not enough time to do them all in. Ah, exam time.

I feel like December exams are far worse than April exams. Nothing really happens in April. Exams are always stressful, because you add the pressure of studying all the time on top of normal duties like cleaning up and doing laundry (and somehow ordinary chores multiply and expand during exam time). But December has the added pressure of Christmas.

This year I'm knitting Christmas gifts for my family, but I don't know whether I'll be able to get them all done. Only 3 weeks left until Christmas! And only about 4 and a 1/2 knitting projects left to finish! :(

But I really can't be piling more stuff on the "to do" list... I'm having enough trouble sleeping as it is.

Freezing cold basement blues

I have lived in basement bedrooms for the past 2 years now. I'm not truly complaining... my bedroom this year is the biggest in the apartment (which I share with two roommates)... but it is, nevertheless, a basement in Ottawa. It is really cold in Ottawa. It's the beginning of December and we had our first snow two days ago, and temperatures have dropped below chilly, nippy and frosty into just plain cold. My basement temperature has dropped accordingly.

Unfortunately this drop coincides with exam time, the only time where I spend long periods of time glued to my desk downstairs, ferociously thinking away. Sad face. This cold makes my mind wander away from organizational communication (not a particularly difficult feat, but still) into the warm and happy lands of yarn and fuzzy.

I must knit some sort of lap blanket. And more fingerless gloves. And leg warmers.

But only after I finish Christmas presents. Le sigh.

Perhaps I should just turn up the heat instead.

Monday, December 6, 2010

First posting!

Hello world.

This is going to be interesting. It's not the first blog I've attempted, you see. All the other ones have now gone wherever it is that blogs go when they die (blog heaven?). This one lives, for now. Hopefully it manages to keep it up.

This time, I'm not going to have any particular rules about the blog, as opposed to the last blogs, which were chockful of them.

But, for you, dear reader(s), I will outline my general plan and introduce myself...

I'm a communications student at the University of Ottawa. I'm an upperclasswoman, and I'll be graduating next year. So this blog will talk about student life, life in Ottawa, and communications studies. That's the study part.

I'm a knitter. I love warm fuzzy things. This blog will talk about adventures with knitting and patterns and yarn and fuzzies. That's the knit part.

Finally, I'm a writer. I love writing fantasy fiction, although I have been known to write other things. I love to read. So I will also post about writing, about reading, and about generally awesome things relating to the literary world. That's the write part.

And of course there will be the occasional post which falls into no section, but those will only turn up occasionally.

I hope you all enjoy!