Orange Day

Got my new memory card! That was incredible - I think I ordered it from overstock.com on Thursday and it was here waiting for me when I got home today. Their shipping is super cheap and kind of unbelievably fast. And DHL managed to get it to my apartment door, despite our intercom/buzzer being broken (I put up a sign)! I popped it in my camera, turned it on, and noticed that instead of the usual 75 or so photos it says it had room for, this time it showed: 1036. And that's super high-res! ZOMG!

Anyway, I'm so dead tired. I've been working a lot for this non-profit called Rebuilding Together as the Green/Recycling Coordinator, and today was our big home repair day. I didn't have to do any construction, but I still had to be there early, answer the phone, send off volunteers, and even bus around Berkeley for an hour when one of my volunteers didn't show up. But, dig the awesome orange shirt they gave me.



Also waiting in the mail for me was this awesome package from nona! My Spirit Award Prize! Better than I could have imagined, nona's prize included a pack of deliriously gorgeous silk hankies and instructions from Spin Off on knitting with them (unspun), a card by Cara which in itself is a prize (it's definitely going on my wall), a Starbucks card (do you KNOW how much paper-writing I'm going to be doing there in the next two weeks?), and a tin of really good fruit candy which, after I empty it in about 24 hours, will be a great second notions tin (my Raspberry Altoids tin is getting full).

Thanks nona! Came on the best of all possible days, too.

Knitting: soon! Can you tell how tired I am by the sheer number of exclamation point in this post?

My Lame Week

Sorry, no photos, the new memory card is in the mail.

Which I can't get, because I lost my mail key.

And if they send it UPS, like my Old Navy order was, I'll never get it because our apartment's buzzer/intercom system is broken. They came twice while I was home and couldn't get ahold of me.

Tuesday night I bussed down to a restaurant in North Berkeley to meet some friends from high school. No one was there. Waited. Waited. Waited. Went to kill time at Office Depot, came back, waited. Called boyfriend for bus schedule, bussed home. Saw e-mail noting the reservation had been made for Wednesday night.

Wednesday I got up early and went to Job #1 to work on a presentation for a Friday morning event. Went to class for an hour. Went to Job #2 for three and a half hours. Went to Stitch n Bitch. No one was there. Waited. Waited. Waited. Checked my phone every 5 minutes to make sure it was really Wednesday. Bussed to restaurant, praying same hostess wasn't working and wouldn't tell my friends I'd been there for an hour the night before. She wasn't. Had dinner. Had too much beer.

Needed it.

Sucky Spanish test today (250 word essay on what the world would be like if it were taken over by machines).

So tired.

Have to be at event tomorrow at 8:30 am. Today I find out my presentation has been canceled. But I still have to go. AGHH

At least the Giants are KICKIN ASS, yeeeah.

In Which I Ask for Favors

First and foremost, I really need help getting the word out about Knitters Against AIDS. I know it's early still but I am going to ask you, if you have a blog, to do me a favor and post a link to http://knitAWSF.blogspot.com somewhere. Even if you aren't in the Bay Area, one of your readers might be. Thanks in advance guys!

So, about those swatches.







The Regents' and Chancellor's Scholars Association puts on an annual art show on campus and I decided to enter some knitting this year to represent. These are done in Elann.com Sonata (and a shred or two of Cotton Classic), based on the ideas in nonaknits' short row tutorial. I am going nuts with ideas over here. I decided that they looked sort of like landscapes, if you wanted them to, and for the third one I really went with that idea. I like it, but it strays from the weird simplicity of the first one. And yes, when I showed up an hour and a half into the art show, I saw that they had placed the displays sideways. I walked over, corrected them, realized that most of the guests had come and gone, thought oh well and went home. Particularly embarrassing because I had mentioned in my bio/blurb that they were meant to look like landscapes, and placed sideways they really, really don't.

I don't know what I'm going to do with these. From the sound of your comments Tuesday, I oughtta put them on Etsy...just kidding. I might make a few more and decide if I want to frame some for my wall. Maybe I could do a set for my mom in her colors. Boy would I get off cheap for Mother's Day!

My Gee's Bend Blanket is moving along. I'd show you a picture of it but it may just be that my trusty old Nikon CoolPix 2000, circa 2002, has kicked the bucket. I'm getting simultaneous "Memory Card Full" and "Card contains no images" messages, so really it's probably just the memory card. I'm learning tricks as I go, knitting in ends, finding the right ratio of stitches to rows when picking up along the edges, trying not to make everything perfectly straight and perfectly sized. Everyone keeps saying, "Oh my god, that is going to take you forever!" We'll see, this is actually my favorite project right now. Sorry, $1.50, I just can't deal with your tubular cast-on at the moment.

As non-knitting life things go, I am still searching for an apartment and a job. I need both pretty quickly. My task for the next couple months is to schmooze with as many Planning types as I can, making some preliminary connections and being, oh god, a little pushy about asking for jobs or advice. I don't like to be pushy. I feel so...bothersome. I got a great piece of advice Monday, though, that it is apparently very flattering to be asked what you do and even for a favor, as it makes you feel sorta important and good about your work. So off I'll go, making everyone I meet feel important and good about their work.

PS HAHAHA! I went to research memory cards for my camera, almost hoping it wouldn't be worth replacing (like, I should just get a new camera), and I noticed a few things. My memory card is 16MB, many of the cards out there seem to hold at least 1GB now, and I saw a bunch under $15. Seriously?

Horizon

I was going to write about these, about the art show where I displayed them last night, about how when I got there, they had set them up upside down and sideways (oops). But now all I can really think about is the students, staff, and faculty at Virginia Tech, and how much like them I feel right now.

Faithful blog readers, to whom I apologize for being too busy with life to post lately, will know that I am a college student at UC Berkeley. You may also know that my kid brother, survivor of leukemia and a couple of major car accidents, goes here too. So you might understand why the thought of him being on campus today, tomorrow, for the rest of his college career has my stomach sinking this morning.

We're fairly well prepared for certain things. You have to be when you live within 50 miles of seven major fault lines, and the Big One is probably - more than probably - going to hit within the next 20 years. We have a meeting place in town, an open space far enough from most buildings. We know to call our mom and, in case we can't call each other, call her again and again to relay messages through her. We need to make our earthquake kits.

But how do you prepare for something that isn't so foreseeable? This makes me think I really shouldn't turn my cell phone off in class, just put it on vibrate in case an important text message needs to come through. It makes me think of when I used to be a campus tour guide. What do you tell parents showing up for college tours today? How can you promise them that their kid will be safe?

What do you do about a danger you just can't see?

Busy

I suck. I meant to post last weekend. I am just so busy looking for a job and an apartment. I want to tell you about Kyoto - the sad story of Kyoto. Maybe tomorrow, if the light is good. Meanwhile, here's a shot of a project I haven't blogged about - I don't want to jinx it.

Back with more soon.

PS Wow, Kurt Vonnegut died. My senior yearbook quote was from him. My boyfriend and I text-messaged each other at literally the exact same moment to tell each other.

Sorry, Pistol Pete

Ugh. I'm finally done with the $1.50 cardigan back for the second time. I was talking to a friend at Stitch n Bitch today who is also knitting this pattern, and when she went to make some clever adjustments to the cable panel, the fact that the magazine photos are flipped really bit her in the you know what. Have they published an errata page for this issue of IK yet? 'Cause they sort of need one. Anyway, I still love the sweater but I'm a little less than psyched about eventually doing the sleeves. Maybe the cable panel will break up zee monotonee.



I am knitting away on my Gee's Bend blanket, but I really, really need longer needles to continue on this panel. I'm going to start one of the other panels while I wait to order some looong Knitpicks Options. And I mean long, like, maybe they should think about adding a cable connector to their line. Long, like, 60 inches ain't gonna cut it long. Yeah.

Oh! I won the Spirit Award over at Nona's for the March Madness pool. I came in 33rd out of 39. I made my picks a lot like this gal did, only I didn't do so well. Next year, NM State. Next year. Woo HOOO! I did have a lot of fun and now I know what a bracket is and how the pool works, so, cool!

And, speaking of prizes and stuff, you didn't think I wouldn't snatch up a little of this for myself, did you?



;)

Don't forget, AIDS Walk sign-ups are going on now! I'm feelin' kinda lonely over there!