Thursday, August 28, 2014

When the end of a knitting project feels like a miracle...

You know you've been working the same six stitch cable pattern for much too long.

Thankfully, I've finally finished the stole, complete with reverse single crochet edge (kill me now) and washing and blocking. It goes off to it's owner on Sunday, and good riddance I say!

In a rare fit of productivity in my knitting, I finished the second bootie today and got started on my Irish Ale socks! Finally! I've been dying to cast these bad boys on since I got the pattern! I'm hoping I've got enough yarn, though I've been eyeing my ball of brown yarn suspiciously this entire time, and, as always, I'm more than a little worried that they won't fit right. They should, mind you. The sizing is for a women's medium, which is like a 7-9 or so, which means that they should fit perfectly on my size 8 feet. But I'm still nervous.

But that, dear readers, is sort of my default setting.

I rescheduled my appointment with the tattoo artist today. I think I mentioned yesterday that I'm going to be working full time again? Well, that means that I can't get the tattoo this week. Which works out alright because that gives me more time to squirrel money away for it. I don't know if I'll drop back to 32 hours when I start having Tuesdays off, or if I'll be switched to working Saturdays, but if the later is true I'll have to take that first Saturday off, because my appointment is before the end of the work day.  I suppose, if worst comes to worst, I can always call again, but I really hate rescheduling things, and it took us quite a while to find a date and time that worked for both of us as it was so....

Anyway, I did that earlier. I also got my earrings in today. I finally broke down and bought two pairs of Sterling silver earrings. Now my ears won't turn green. Overstock.com was a great help. I got two lovely pairs of earrings (a pair of silver four-leaf clovers and a pair of Celtic crosses) for the price of a pair at Claire's. This means that I can wear earrings in both of the piercings in my lobes without having greenish-gray skin.

See, the only pair of nice earring I owned were gold hoops, which is a problem (and not just because I'm not a huge fan of gold-tone jewelry), because there's enough danger of ripping my earrings out of my lobes with simple studs, never mind these dangly hoops!

Besides, I prefer to wear studs, unless I'm dressed like a pirate.

True story: During the Spring semester I was taking the Comp. 1000 course and it was the most boring class I had ever taken with the worst professor ever (well, tied with the Sociology professor from the previous semester). In a form of passive rebellion (i.e. would not get a black mark on record  or such) I decided to attend this class in various pirate-inspired outfits, complete with Sharpie Jack Sparrow Tattoo (the baby powder tattoo thing does not work very well in my experience) and various colorful scarves.

I passed the class with a C, which is hardly surprising given the number of times the program we were using for quizzes and tests would glitch and the general level of apathy that pervaded...well, everything.

That was actually the harshest review I've ever given a professor in my life. She was literally never there! She'd call roll 15 minutes late, and then vanish for 30 minutes (or more!) at a time! She googled every little question and I'll be honest, I'm surprised she even knew how to turn the computer on!

And don't get me started on the curriculum! Talk about going around your ass to get to your elbow! They literally showed you the longest way to do a series of actions within the programs (Microsoft Office) and the book! Worthless! Not only is it published especially for them (meaning you spend $50 on a book that you can't sell back or buy used or rent), but it is the worst book I've ever used! The glossary was joke, the index was pathetic, the instructions might as well have been written in Hebrew for all I could understand of it, and there was no "handy things to know" or anything!

I'm so glad I passed that class, even if I do feel like that grade was robbery. I'm just glad that I never have to take it again! And the program? Yeah, there was a disc so we could install it on our computers and work at home. I had to uninstall it after two weeks because I had so many viruses on my computer. I uninstalled it, ran anti-virus, haven't had any more problems with it. One of my friends from English the previous semester lost two computers after installing that program on it.

Anyway! You really don't want to hear me rant about the problems I had last semester, especially with the mini-mester right around the corner! I'm planning on picking up an on-line class or two, since I can work on those at work. And! Since I'm not at the Campus with He-who-shall-not-be-named I can work on it without someone breathing down my neck.

Seriously, I don't know what that guys problem is, but the people who have the most issues with him all seem to be white women.

Not like sexual issues. He's just an ass.

But yeah....either way, not taking that class, or any other classes at that campus again. I'd just about prefer to gouge my eyes out.

I'm going to sign off and get back to my socks! I'm hoping to finish them up by Sunday, so wish me luck!

Yours always,
Tara