knitting

As I was on my way to the grocery store this morning… And boy was it a beautiful morning! No clouds whatsoever, a nice pink hazy glow on the sea, little black dots of surfers waiting for good waves, no wind, just.. perfect. I need to wake up earlier to enjoy this more often. Anyway, I was going to the store and a little two year old blond boy with big blue eyes was coming towards me, holding his father’s hand as they slowly walked behind the mother pushing a stroller. The boy looked up at me, grinned and said: “Pwitty!” That just made my day. I guess all it takes is a smile and kids think you’re pretty. :D

I also got some prescriptions refilled and knit more of my sock while waiting to see the nurse. Even though my appointment was at 10:15, I knew they’d be running late as usual so I brought my knitting with me. It’s still the Bellatrix sock, but I should have that done by tonight, not much left of the foot before starting the toe. One of the women I sat next to in the waiting room just blurted out: “It’s so nice to see someone knitting again. You don’t see a lot of that anymore…” All of the others in the waiting room just kinda looked oddly at me. Not too sure if it was the sock or the skirt I’m wearing (it’s very colorful).

The portfolio is done. Did the final editing last night. I don’t know should I print it off today before dancing (which would mean more climbing up the hill to get to the right building) or wait until tomorrow when I’ll be picking up my reference letter from one of my tutors… Either way, it’ll be handed in before the 2pm deadline.

Okay, just a quickie since I really really really want to listen to the latest L&V podcast and knit.

Saturday was tiring, as was to be expected. Alan and I danced six dances: Beginner’s Waltz, Quickstep, Cha, Jive, Rumba and then the Open Rock’N’Roll. We were also the D team Quickstep. Amazingly enough, we got to the quarter finals of the Quickstep and Jive!! Who knows how, since our first round of Quickstep was just awful. Awful awful awful. And I’m not exagerrating. He tried to lock step when I thought we were doing just a basic, then vice versa and our “quick quick” timing wasn’t the same but somehow we managed to do the “slow, slow” parts together… Odd. And the Jive? Well, after about 20 seconds of dancing that, my legs got so tired that I couldn’t lift up my feet properly anymore. So maybe the judge saw us at the beginning of our “routine” (basically, we didn’t have one; just muttered what we were going to do next to each other)?

The time I spent in Sheffield was as usual. As in, I love being with Oliver and we have fun doing stuff together, but we don’t actually get to see each other that much since he’s at work all day. Although, during the day time I did have time to finish off my portfolio, finish Anji’s Fetchings, watch ANTM reruns (and do all the editing and setting them to transcode) and finally start socks again! Gotta say, I am in madmadmad love with socks. The ones on my needles right now are the Bellatrix socks (can’t remember exactly where online I got them from) in the variegated white/pink/purple/blue/gold/and more! Regia 4-ply. They are just so relaxing to knit. And fun! Especially after huge projects like a top and a shawl. No, the shawl isn’t done yet, and my Isabella still needs to have one seam sewn up, but at least I’m knitting socks again. I’ve already got one done and immediately cast on the next one. No SSS for me! (That’s Second Sock Syndrome, not the Spring Shawl Surprice which I will also refer to as SSS XD). Oh! And I got my lace yarn for the SSS. Lovely lovely lovely. I just held it and petted it and cuddled it for a bit before putting it away and finishing off the Fetchings. Yarn makes me happy. ^_^

Train ride back to Aber was uneventful. No seat (again) from Sheffield to Birmingham, but that’s okay since it’s only an hour. Then on the Aber train I knit some more while listening to Cast On. :) Can’t be bothered to go food shopping today, so I’ll just be creative with what I’ve got for tonight. I’ll probably start packing later today. I can’t decide which suitcase I’ll be using though: medium or large? Large, as the name suggests, has more space, but that would also make it heavier. I think I’ll try to go for the medium one…

I am done! o/ No, not with my second portfolio, you silly people. With my Isabella. Bound it off last night. Okay, so I still need to weave in the ends, block it and seam it together, but it’s done. Of course, since it’s a tank top, I can’t actually wear it until it gets a hell of a lot warmer (even in my room where I’ve got the radiator on full blast, I have to wear socks and a sweater when I usually just hang out in a T-shirt and sweats).

And I sort of am done with my portfolio. To get to the very minimum limit I need another 20 words. But I’m waiting for my tutor to send me the handout for next week’s seminar so I can include that into the portfolio as well. Oh, and I got my other portfolio back. A First!! I’ve never gotten a first from anything at Aber. Sure, in Montana it was pretty much straight As in Creative Writing because I’m brilliant that way, but over here, it’s always been a 2.1. A solid 2.1., never even attempting to stray over into the First category. It was this news that got me working on this portfolio again. I had kinda given up because I was so annoyed at it, but the Cute Teacher really really liked it, so that gave me the push to make this portfolio good too. Positive reinforcement works. ^_^

Still nervous about tomorrow. Not as nervous as I was earlier in the week, though. It’s kinda settled down into a low hum. Practiced for four hours yesterday and by the end of it, my feet were not happy. No clue how they’ll survive tomorrow when it’s a whole day of dancing in heels. Right now, we’re thinking of competing in six events: Beginners’ Waltz, Quickstep, Chacha, Jive and Rumba, and the open Rock’N’Roll. We haven’t actually practised the Rock’N’Roll together, so we might not do that one. Am still bringing a possible outfit for it though, just in case. The Rock’N’Roll is fun; I was dancing that with Luke (the guy who looks like Ron Weasley [not Rupert Grint, but the Ron I had in my head before the movies came out]). We also did some Rumba and Waltz. Gotta say, he’s gotten better since the first time we danced together. More confident and is able to sorta lead now. :)

What else… went to buy food stuff for tomorrow; the weather was just awful. Pouring down rain for a few minutes then stopping for a bit before continuing. Then coming back, as soon as I got to the Prom, it felt like there was a wall of wind pushing me backwards. Not fun, especially when the wind makes it hard to breathe. I don’t really mind rain in itself, I actually like it, but only when I’m indoors and can watch/listen to it. When I’m out in it and it’s not summer? Nuh uh. It makes my hair go all wonky too. Sorta curls up awkwardly and I can’t get it to stay down.

Finally did some handwashing. Kinda had to since I ran out of warm handknit socks to wear to bed. I had really strange dreams last night. I remember waking up twice; once around four and the other time around seven. Not too sure why or what I dreamed of, but I do remember being annoyed at being cold and thinking that that was an odd dream.

I kinda feel like watching Pearl Harbor or Titanic right now. No idea why. I guess I’m just in the mood for a really long love story movie. *shrugs*

I want to knit socks. But I also want to completely finish off Isabella. And finish the row I started on my shawl. And make some Twinkletoes for Jade… oh the choices. Hmm, I’ll probably wind up doing all of those at some point tonight.

I can tell that I’m about to get my period. During the last few hours I’ve been really happy (found some awesome Bailey’s ice cream!), very annoyed at Martin (I do not want to be cooked alive while showering, thankyouverymuch), kinda down and not in the mood to work on my second portfolio, had weird cravings for salt and then something sweet, feeling very bloated and then content again when I put on my Monkey socks that had been warmed up on the radiator. Gotta love hormones. o_O;;

Oh, and then there’s the teensy little panic about the competition on Saturday. I haven’t really been able to practice much with Alan; today’s session was cancelled and tomorrow we’ve only got about two hours out of four since he’s got lectures and stuff he can’t miss (I, on the other hand, have decided to skip that one rescheduled seminar). Then there’s another hour and a half on Friday evening, but that’s it. I have been trying to practice by myself, usually while cooking, but there isn’t a whole lot of space to do much, let alone Quickstep. And that’s one of the dances that I really need to work on with my timing. And I found out that we’re leaving at five a.m. on Saturday, not four like last time. Yay for an extra hour of sleep. ^_^

Kinda bored with the work they’re giving us at school. I’ve just kinda lost interest in it. I got one of my portfolios back today and I should be getting a solid 2.1 if all of my work is like that, but… I’m just not feeling the drive to strive for better writing right now. I want to do well, but what’s the point if I don’t really care about it? The same goes for my knitting. I’ve got two projects on the needles, one of them almost complete, but I kinda have to force myself to work on those. I want to knit a pair of socks, damnit. Not work on a top or shawl. But, gasp!, I don’t have enough yarn to complete a pair of socks and I’m not going to wear mismatched ones. I even tried going yarn shopping today to find more of the three different sock yarns that I have but the store over here either doesn’t carry the brand, the particular line or the colorway that I want. Grr. Did get some needles for the Spring Shawl Surprice (yes, it’s spelled like that, I did not make a typo) that I’m going to do next month. And on Sunday I finally get to fondle my lovely Lisa Souza Alpaca Lace yarn. And the new Knitty is up! Omg omg omg, I want to make practically everything in this issue. Like, seriously. In mad mad love with it. Especially the Jeanie shawl. Now I just need to finish up some projects before casting on something from this issue. Oooh, I might finally find a use for my Baby Alpaca DK yarn that I’ve got. See, this is why I knit. Even just thinking about it perks me up. *grin*

I have a bruise and a scratch the shape of a high heeled shoe’s heel on top of my right foot. Hurts. :( But those are the dangers of dancing. Need to get used to it. I bought some shoes on Friday to dance in. Pretty strappy black things with sparkly bits. Got them from Peacocks. They’re actually the exact same shoes as Sophie’s got. I wanted the gold heels they had, but those didn’t have a strap around the ankle and thus, they’d fly off my feet when I tried dancing. At today’s session, the first Sunday session I’ve ever been to, I practiced with Oliver. Apparently my timing is way way off. XD Can follow okay, but timing is just not something I can do. Only four of us showed up, none are competing next weekend. Well, Oliver is, but not with me. :P

I’m not too big of a fan of the whole buzzer/intercom thing we’ve got in our building. Let’s take last night/this morning for instance. It’s somewhere around 4:30-5:45 am and a really loud noise wakes us all up. It’s as if someone’s playing a very bad song with our buzzer. I did not appreciate waking up that way. Not at all.

It’s been ridiculously windy out here. Making my window whistle annoyingly. The sea has not stopped churning for the past three-four days. That’s being loud too. I mean, it’s nice watching it while drinking a nice cup of hot tea. It is not, however, nice to walk in it. Sort of felt like a wall of wind hitting me every so often as I was walking back from the train station after Oliver left.

I knit a few rows of my Isabella tonight. It’s going really really slowly. As is the Scrap Diamond Shawl I’m making. And I still need to make some Twinkletoes for Jade before I go home. I’d rather make socks, but she really wants some ballet slipper things. So that’s what she shall get.

I wish my room wouldn’t get so cold. I don’t like to have to be layered up all the time. Of course, it does give me a reason to wear the stuff I make, especially the socks, but it’s still not very pleasant.

It’s pretty likely that I won’t be competing at Manchester. I’m still going, but no competitive dancing for me. If I get my first portfolio done by Friday, which I’m pretty sure I will since I only need another 640 words to reach the minimum, I’ll be going up to Sheffield before Saturday and going there with Oliver. Not really into travelling on a cold minibus in the middle of the night for over four hours when I can take two comfy trains up north and then travel in a nice warm coach with Oliver for an hour on the day of the competition instead. Then there’s another portfolio due on the 14th. That’s almost half done. Unfortunately, the half that’s missing is the commentary. Always a pain to write. Plus I need to rework the creative piece a bit. Lengthen it, clear up confusing passages, slow down the action in part that went by too quickly.

Happy December to all! I finally get to wear my festive jewelry. ^_^ And with that, I’m off to bed. Hopefully knit a row or two before actually going to sleep.

You know what? I really enjoy dancing. I do. And going to competitions even if they tend to be really long days and some have the tendency to drag in the middle quite a bit. So I’ve decided that I am going to try to find myself a partner for the Manchester Winter Competition which is in two weeks time. I actually already have a certain person in mind that I’ll try to convince tomorrow if he shows up. Wish me luck!

Another thing that’s happening in two weeks time? Portfolios are due. Yep, two portfolios, each 2,500-3,000 words long. At first, when I realized this, I kinda got panicky. Then, I sat down at my trusty laptop, picked out one of my all time favorite poems (The Flea, by John Donne if anyone’s interested) and wrote a piece of dialogic stemming from that poem. Then I wrote a big chunk of the commentary related to that piece of writing and would you look at that, I’ve already got 600 words. If I keep this up, I should be fine. ^_^ I especially enjoy the feeling of accomplishment I get afterwards. Now I just need to figure out what else I’m going to put into this portfolio. The other portfolio, which is for the Cute Teacher, is pretty much already decided. I mean, how cool is it that I get to write about being a ghost? That’s the assignment he gave us for next week and I’m pretty sure I’ll find a way to incorporate that into one of the piece of my next portfolio.

A miracle has happened. The guys cleaned the flat! We have an inspection tomorrow and guess what, nagging works. And pointedly mentioning that I did not enjoy having to clean the whole place by myself last time. And since they’re inspecting the bedrooms as well, I had to tidy up in here. Not that I had much to do really. Just vacuum and fold and put away clothes. Not too sure about what to do with all of my yarn and knitting related stuff though. Right now they’re in various bags in different corners of the room. They’re not going to whine about me having yarn all over the place, right? It is, after all, fire retardant mostly. A lot of it is wool, with just a few skeins of acrylic left over from my Wal-Mart shopping days. The acrylic I do have is really soft though, and non-squeaky, so I will use it up eventually. I actually have projects in mind for them, but I just haven’t had the time to cast them on since I want to finish the ones I’ve already got in the works…

My sister’s birthday present came in the mail today! ^_^ I think she’ll really like it. I hope she will!

And now back to regularly scheduled programming. For me, that would be listening to Harry Potter read by Stephen Fry and knitting my Isabella. Yes, I’m still working on it. I only just today joined up the other green yarn for the lace panel. Oh crap. I just remembered that I still have to make some Twinkletoes from knitty.com before I go home! Eep. Will be very busy these next few weeks. Not that’ll stop me from watching a lot of my DVDs though. :P

It’s actually working. The past two mornings I’ve had to get up by 8:15 in order to make it to class on time. Then today when I have absolutely nothing to do that is scheduled, no alarm set up or anything, and I wake up at 8 all by myself. It was an odd feeling. Then again, tomorrow I will definitely need the help of an alarm clock since I have to get up at 3:45 am. I’m going to the Nottingham Competition. Just as a spectator though. Don’t have a partner and I haven’t really danced in three weeks either. Yesterday I did go to both dance classes they had, making it a grand total of four hours of dancing in one day. ^_^

I also had a meeting with the Cute Teacher. I had given him a story to read and he really liked it. Told me that I should try to get my stuff published since writing seems to be another thing that I just do in my spare time. And he gave me good ideas on how to improve that particular piece. It’s a bit scary though, sending stuff to others. I mean, just the idea of it. I don’t think I will do that just yet. Want to build up a stack of various things I’ve written that I can then send to different magazines/publishers. This is going to eat away at my knitting time, isn’t it? Why do I have to choose? ;_; Ooh, and I’ve handed in the referee forms to two of my teachers so that they can tell the admissions people in Manchester how wonderfully talented I am. XP

I’ve also slowly begun giving/throwing stuff away. I’ve tried on some of the shirts that hang in my closet and realized that they are too big on me, so I’ll be giving them to my sister. I sorted through my pens and threw away the ones that didn’t work. I’ve given away some of my unused make-up (it was what Oliver’s mom got from her sister-in-law last Christmas). It’s actually quite fun purging my stuff. Less to drag around with me when I move again.

I’ve mentioned that I’ve recently dyed my hair. On the box it says that it should last up to 15 washes. Nope, pretty much after the third wash, it’s gone. Well, there’s a little red tinge at my roots, but otherwise it’s all gone. Maybe once I’m back in Belgium I’ll try to look for the Color Pulse stuff. It seemed to stick around longer than the box said it would. They only have three colors over here, none of which I want to try especially. But I think that Jaz said that they had more choices over there.

Yes, it seems like I travel a lot. Which I kinda do, now that I think about it. Anyway, I have just bought my train tickets to go home in four weeks time. ^_^ I wonder if Mocca still remembers me. I’m pretty sure she does. The last time I called home and Jaz called out to Mocca saying that I’m on the phone, Mocca apparently ran to the front door and then my room door looking for me. How big has she gotten? I’ve been told that she’s been put on a diet. Tsk tsk for them feeding her table scraps. *sigh* Now I want my own dog. Well, I guess I’ll get one soon enough. I mean, Oliver and I are planning on getting one at some point. But I want us to have a house first so the dog’ll have lots of space to move around. Especially since I prefer the bigger breeds, like a German Shepherd, while Oliver would rather have a teeny tiny Italian Greyhound. For now, we’ve compromised on a Norwegian Elkhound.

What else… Oh yes, I’ve gotten some presents blocked, now I just need to wrap them up. Don’t have any wrapping paper though. Guess I’ll just wait until I get home and see what they’ve got there. Again, I can’t say what I’ve got done, just in case the recipient happens to read my blog. I’ve finished up all of the L&V yarn, now I’m onto the Violet’s Pink Ribbon on the shawl. So far, it looks … interesting.

Have I mentioned how much I love fish? Well, I love fish. There. It’s been mentioned.

Oh and it is so nice to be back in my room with all of my things. Especially my knitting stuff. ^-^

Back in Aber again. Just seeing the sea made me happy. ^_^ Anyway, I got the 10:53 train which was late, but never mind since I had like forty minutes to change at Birmingham New Street, right? Wrong. I get to Birmingham, don’t see the Aber train on the board yet (too early) so I go ask what platform it’s going to go from. I get told that it’s cancelled and that if I want to make it to that specific Aber train, I need to hotfoot it to the Wolverhampton train that was going to leave in like three minutes and make the connection from there. Dragging a ridiculously heavy suitcase from one end of the station to the other and down the steps is not fun. Trust me. Don’t try it. Oh and from Sheffield to Birmingham? Had to stand the whole way because apparently, some people decided that the luggage racks only hold two or three at a time, took over the empty space where wheelchairs and stuff go with their suitcases, leaving no space whatsoever for the other people who are unfortunate enough to be travelling with more than just a small bag. So I stood right next to the door with my suitcase and read three chapters of Jane Austen’s Persuasion.

From Wolverhampton onwards though I was fine. I worked a little bit on my Writing Project (wrote maybe a page or so, nothing major) and the rest of the time I spent listening to L&V and knitting a shawl. I’m trying to use up all of my left over sock yarn, so it’s going to be colorful and quite possibly very ugly. But I don’t care. I like the colors I’m using; started out with the leftover LimeNViolet Sock! Merino by Lisa Souza and once that’s all gone, I’ll go for the Violet’s Pink Ribbon Sock! Merino that I’ve got. And then the Gingerpeach, also Sock! Merino. So at least most of it will be the same yarn, just in different colors. The pattern is called the Diamond Knit Shawl which I got from Lionbrand.com (of all places!). I would’ve picked out a lace pattern from Victorian Lace Today, but I didn’t have my book with me and I really really really felt like I needed to knit yesterday so I went with what I had access to. Plus, I don’t think that a lace pattern would show up that well with all of the colors that I’m using. Pics will be up eventually on Ravelry as usual. Or if anyone really wants to see my knitted goodies and doesn’t have Ravelry, then just leave a comment or e-mail me and I’ll send them to ya. ^_^

Quite hungry now. It’s been about seven hours since I had breakfast, so I think I’ll go make dinner. Eugh, and a shower after I’ve eaten. Travelling makes me smelly. *wrinkles nose*