Well, here I am

... in Jersey.

I'm actually having a really lovely time.  Despite this past week being a week in which I thought I was going to relax but found out otherwise, I have blessedly not been as tired.  During this whole week (excluding last night), I haven't gone to bed before 1 AM.  Although, last night should count, considering I had to wake up at 3:30 AM to catch my flight.

I nearly died of a heart attack today several times.  First of all, the bus to take me to O'Hare was fifteen minutes late.  For someone like me who likes to be at the airport in plenty of time, even if the airport bus was spot-on time, it would've been an abnormally tight squeeze.  Naturally it wasn't.  I got to the airport with forty-five minutes to go before my flight and due to my genius of printing out my boarding pass ahead of time managed to make it to (what I thought was) my gate in fifteen minutes.  But wait!  There's more!  My boarding pass and the boards at the airport told me to go to the wrong gate.  F8, they said.  If not for the intervention of an extremely helpful gentleman, I would've missed my flight.  We were chatting and he was telling me about how you could get text alerts about your flight, and since my phone was already off he decided to do it for me.  This was the point where I discovered my gate was actually E7, not F8.  I had to book it to the other side of the terminal and managed to make it 15 minutes before my plane left.  Phew.  (For reference, I usually like to arrive at the airport about two hours before my flight.  The earliest airport bus, however, would only take me to the airport one hour before my flight.)

But, here I am, safe and sound.  Ryan's family is pretty charming (a lot better than mine, but what's new?) and their house is a genuine menagerie.  It's amazing.  They have like, eight rabbits, two tortoises, two guniea pigs, three hamsters, a snake, a leopard gecko, and two frogs in the bathroom.  Rabbits are really soft and cuddly... just in case anyone wanted to know.

Tomorrow I'm going yarn shopping at some local yarn stores, because if I don't start a new project for me as soon as possible, I'm going to explode.  I still haven't ever knit anything for myself.  Not to mention, knitting provides daily stress relief in a way nothing else does.  Although being in Jersey, not having anything to do, and hanging out with Ryan all day is the best stress relief cocktail I could ask for, I still want to knit.

Time to do some Ravelry cruising.

Four different topics

I need to start a new knitting project or I'm going to go insane.  Technically, I should finish the EPS raglan and begin on Hope's scarf.  Sigh.  In truth, Hope's scarf seems daunting to me right now when all I really want to do is knit a nice cardigan or shawl or mittens or something.  (Sorry Bree, it'll get done  D: )

On a complete tangent, I had a very nice weekend with Ryan and saw him off to the airport yesterday.  Bree went with us, and when we were on our way back, we missed our train.  We ended up skipping around Millennium Park and hanging around a Dunkin' Donuts... and who should sit at the table next to us but real, genuine hookers?  They were really terribly dressed and were talking about "the business."  Yeah.  We also saw a crazy hobo on Michigan Ave.  He was speaking in tongues.

On another complete tangent, I've also been playing on Skritter for awhile.  It's a website designed for kanji practice for Japanese... seriously, the most amazing kanji practice site ever designed.  It makes learning kanji fun (for me, at least).  So fun, I use the verb "play" when I talk about Skritter.  I play on Skritter.

Headway on life problems has been made, I think.  Waiting for the start of summer for things to really kick off (about a week and a half).  Feelings towards AAP are slowly dying down to embers.  The release from the emotions he stirred up in me makes me want to cry, it's so good.

Amazing

Ryan's coming to see me tonight.  Expect me to disappear off the face of the earth now that he's here.

Oh, and I finished all of my IB exams!  I'M FREE!  Now I can start getting off of my ass and maybe doing some things?

The Trifecta of Depression

WARNING: extremely long blog post about life problems

Sometimes the ginger life ain't so easy.  I'm having some problems and I think I can't go to bed with any semblance of peace of mind until I get these thoughts out of my head somehow.  I don't like talking to people about it because there's nothing, really, that other people can do to help.  In order to overcome these problems, changes are going to have to occur inside of myself.  (Of course, others can give moral support and encouragement, which is greatly appreciated.)  Not to mention, it's difficult for most of the people I know to relate to my problems.  And, I haven't told many people about it yet, so in order for people to get the entire story, they'd be sitting there until next July.

But I'm going to tell you, O Blog Readers of Mine.  Not just to tell someone, but so I can get these thoughts organized and presented in a fashion that will help me understand them as well.

The problems in my life either fall under the heading of Arrogance or Sloth or Hate.  The arrogance of other people is getting me down; I always feel compared and judged by these people.  And sloth because there are changes I want to make in my life, and I know how to do them... it's just that I haven't.  There's no reason why I couldn't have done anything.  I just haven't.  And hate because I can't deal with hating humanity very well.

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Arrogance... It's really the arrogance of other people, and maybe some traces of arrogance in myself.  I hate arrogance.  In my humble opinion, nobody is better than anybody else and everyone is entitled to their lifestyle as long as it doesn't harm anybody (philosophical questions aside).  I must admit that sometimes in my thoughts I fall victim to arrogance; many a time there has been when I have imagined myself better than some crude people I know.  But I know that on the inside, we're all the same.

What really gets me, though, is the presupposed self-importance that many people carry around with them.  I don't like it.  It makes me feel a little bit sick to think that they think they're better than me.  One person in particular haunts my life with his arrogance and immaturity even though I haven't spoken a word to him since December (who hereby will be referred to as Aforementioned Arrogant Person [AAP]).  Every time I'm in his presence, I feel like every action I make should somehow be geared to telling him that I am not the lowlife he thinks I am.

But more than this person, I feel like the things I do in life should be done to tell everybody that I am worthy of high thoughts.  Right now in high school, I'm dealing with everybody in my class who has a higher rank than me, higher GPAs than me, better scholarships than mine, more awards, etc., etc.  In reality, I don't care that I don't have these things.  I don't need them to be happy.  All I wanted was to go to IU to study languages and become a translator, and I'm getting that!  IU gave me enough financial aid so that I can realize my life goal.  I have everything I want set before me, and I'm still suffering from bouts of depression because I feel like I have to prove myself to people.  How messed up is that?

I had a realization one day that I live in an extremely competitive society where high achievement -- not happiness -- is considered success.  I honestly do not give a flying fuck about achieving as much as possible.  I care about achieving what makes me happy.  But what makes me happy is not what everyone else thinks goes into the formula for A Good Person.  Thus, my happiness goals conflict with the societal image of a person worth thinking highly of.  Societal schemas still rubs off on me, though, and I can't help looking at all of the achievements everybody else has made and becoming depressed.

I'm all for achieving a lot in something you're passionate about.  I haven't really been achieving much lately, though (see Sloth), and so that might have quite a bit to do with my depression.  I want to be involved in humanitarian causes, languages, and religious activities -- all things I'm not doing right now.  You should achieve great things in areas you have a passion in, by all means.  But I'm not doing that either.

Social networking sites do nothing to help my obsessive comparisons.  I look up a lot of people on facebook to see what they're up to way too much.  If I weren't so obsessed on what everyone else is doing, then maybe I could get up off of my ass and go do something of my own.  I'm making this out to seem like I'm a closet case, which isn't really true at all, but my words do have something to them.  I spend way too much time in front of the computer, torturing myself by looking up AAP's profile and becoming so angry with the fact that he is so arrogant... I'm only emotionally beating myself up.

So when I compare myself all the time to everybody else, I can't help but feel lackluster.

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Moving on to Sloth.  Admittedly, I am a lazy person and enjoy inactivity.  This is destroying me, though, because as mentioned beforehand, I don't get up off of my ass to do anything.  There are so many things I want to do, and I'm not doing them.  Why?  There is no reason why.  A mental block, perhaps, but if there is one it is so subtle, I don't even know it's there.

I want to learn six languages, start some knowledge on my midwifery training, knit, lose weight, start on the path to religious realization, start my yoga training, and read.  I also have a job and am going to be a college student.  All of this is really hard to fit into one life, I know, but it is so doable.  I know I can do it.  And I don't.  I'm not going to lie when I say that I have some problems with my weight.  I'm not fat, but I am by no means fit, either.  And this bothers me.  I want to be fit.  I have all the tools before me to become what I want to become, and I'm not doing it.  Not doing anything to further my dreams drags down my self-esteem even more.  And it makes me even more depressed when I look around at my life and realize that I am not a step further towards my goals today than I was a month ago.

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And finally, Hate.  I hate humanity, I hate how people mindlessly go about their lives, I hate how I can predict where half of my graduated class will be twenty years from now.  I hate ignorance and arrogance and apathy about important things.  I hate lies and untruth.  I hate war, fighting, and pointless conflicts.  I hate atheism, intolerance, propaganda, irresponsibility, being woken up, boredom, and petty-ness.  The list goes on and on, but most importantly, I hate AAP.

AAP and I used to be friends.  We used to be very good friends, as a matter of fact -- he was one of my best friends.  And then he started to change... and become more arrogant.  He began to believe that his opinions on everything were better than everyone else's.  He laughed at others' stupidity.  Sometimes he would sit on the internet, find pictures of people, and laugh at them because they weren't like him.  He thought his opinion was the only right opinion to have on naturally subjective matters, like politics and music.  Then he found someone who was just like him and had the same arrogance level, and everything magnified tenfold.  Now he likes to make fun of people who aren't like him.  Eventually, I bitched him out and told him to stop talking to me.

I just can't get over losing him to something I dislike so much.  I can't deal with the fact that I hate him.  And I don't hate him, per se... but the thought of him makes me sick.  I can't wait to get away from him when I go to college, yet I occasionally peek through his tumblr and facebook profile to see what he's up to, and everything I see intensifies my anger and dislike.  I find myself thinking about him at least once a day, and I can relate so many things about him that I don't like to almost anything anyone says.  It's sad.  It's terrible.  Because all of his activities or anything he does is just a representation of his arrogance and the pleasure I know he gets from being "different" and "hip" and (shudder) "avant-garde."

I hate all of this, and I can't let it go.  His presence is a shadow over my life and there's no reason why it should be, but it is.  My prolonged hatred of him is eating away at my spirit, slowly but surely, and I need to find a way out of not only hating him, but hating everything else as well.  I need to find a way to deal with everything so that I can find inner peace and not be bothered so much by annoyance from AAP and the world.

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I compare myself to everyone and feel lackluster.  I don't take the steps necessary to fulfill my aspirations.  I am mired in the hatred of humanity and AAP.  In short, I've got some problems and need to do something about it.

Arrogance will be solved when I manage to adhere to my own principles of happiness and achieve them.  Sloth will be taken care of when I start working towards my goals.  And Hate will be tossed away when I can manage to start the path towards self-realization and finally not be troubled so much by everything.  Someone I know always laughs and is happy she's not like everything she hates; I can't do that.  But maybe someday I can work towards it.  I don't have to be angry at everything.  I just need to learn to let things go.

Easier said than done, but at least I've identified the problem.

I survived today

Bio exam was moderately well-taken (except for the material our teacher never taught us -- but that's a rant for a day with more free time and energy), debate work was slogged through, and work went all right.  I am home and not even dead tired.  I have enough energy to write my grade justification essay for my history teacher (i.e., I've known you for four years and I've worked very hard this quarter, so in lieu of having no grades for me, give me an A).  It's good.

I survived today!

Side note

I've just read the last few posts I've made recently, and I have to make a side note to apologize for the absolute monotony of everything.  I promise I'm not this boring.  IB exams and work are just eating my life.  This vortex of fatigue should end this Sunday, though, so that's when normalcy shall resume.

Whatever normal is.

Of Mitsuwa and Overwork

I have just a week before things slow down and I can relax.  Really, I should have taken this day as a personal day but I chose instead to accompany a few friends up to Chicago to Mitsuwa Marketplace.  Mitsuwa is a Japanese department store in Arlington Heights and it sells almost everything; they also have a food court that offers the best udon I've ever eaten (but I haven't eaten much udon).  I kind of need a day where I can regather my resources and get everything organized... that was supposed to be yesterday during the morning, but that never happened either.  The Great Purge?  It's still waiting.  It kind of has to happen tonight.

Whenever I get really run down, I always have these urges to just lay around and do nothing so I can recuperate from the world.  Trouble is, there's usually all sorts of things I still need to do... so this often resorts in a lot of stuff going undone.  My two most challenging IB exams are coming up this week, bio and Japanese, and I really should be studying a lot for them; instead I nap a lot.  And eat ramen.  And take trips to Mitsuwa.

Tomorrow I have three and a half hours of bio exams to sit through before heading off to a two-hour debate meeting and then going straight to work.  With the rate tonight's going at, it'll probably be on six hours of sleep, too.  Kill me.

The Great Purge

I feel a little guilty for not writing in this regularly, even though almost nobody reads this.  I guess it's the integrity of the matter.

Well, anyway.  I really wanted to talk about "Nicole wants to be a conscious consumer."  For two reasons, really.  One, it's alarming how much stuff that I have that I never use.  And two, it is also alarming on how once I spent almost all of my weekend earnings ($75) on food alone.  Food.  Consumable stuff that I didn't even need to buy and could easily have obtained at home.  $75 that might have been able to be put towards a new laptop for college.  So, I am feeling like a very mindless American right now and this weekend, the Great Purge shall take place.

I feel that all of the possessions that I have cluttered into my room have also cluttered my lifestyle.  It's kind of a bummer to come into my room at the end of a very busy day and just look at all of the stuff, and then also realize that because I have so much stuff, it's really hard to keep my room clean.  My laundry gets out of hand because I have so many clothes, my desk gets cluttered because there are so many useless papers, etc.  I feel that if I can narrow down my possessions to things I really need, and keep it that way, that ultimately it will make me happier.  This also carries some deeper religious undertones... everything in this world has energy, and that energy becomes stagnant when the thing isn't used for its purpose and just sits there.  There is a ton of stagnant energy in my room, not only from unused objects lurking in drawers, but from the unbelievable amount of crap blocking energy from moving around my room.

Enter the Great Purge.  Anything I don't need will be donated to Goodwill.

Things also need to be organized, so that I can easily determine what will take the trip with me down to Bloomington and what won't.  I need a basket for my yarn.  Go figure.

Things that aren't about knitting

Knitting?  What's that?  Yeah, I haven't been knitting at all.  I worked on the EPS raglan for... about twenty minutes today after I finished my third history exam.  Three essays in 2 hours and 10 minutes.  Can you say essay fatigue?  The AP English kids also had their exam today, so in Japanese absolutely nobody wanted to do anything (but that's not different from any other day, anyway).

I'm kind of glad because today I had a re-surge in my desire to actually learn Japanese.  It made me happy and made my college major seem worthwhile.  Hooray!

Aaaand, today I went clothes shopping.  Again.  This is actually more relevant than it seems, because it has ties to "Nicole wants to be a conscious consumer."  More on this later though, considering this blog post has been festering in my browser for two hours while I've shopped for laptops, researched processors, and switched from Microsoft Office to Google Docs.

It's been awhile

I've been working lots of hours, and my IB exams started this week.  Needless to say, I'm pretty swamped.  And when I'm not swamped, I either sit and stare into space with a zombie expression on my face or sleep.

I've been knitting on the EPS raglan.  Mindless stuff.

Pointless ramblings

Hi.  More nothing to report, here.

Most of my week last week was spent trying to hide under a rock.  But all was in vain.  I was really just depressed about state debate, I think.  Last weekend (like, the nine days ago kind of last weekend) was the state debate tournament and... well, I don't really want to brag, but my partner and I have the ability to fucking walk into that tournament and OWN BITCHES.  Except, that didn't happen.  We got knocked out in octafinals.  Jeff and I were a favorite to win state and we got knocked out at octafinals.  It was illegit.  I don't want to whine so much because it's bitchy and annoying, but sometimes I just can't stop myself.  It wasn't because we messed up that we got knocked out... I'm just in policy debate, the most complicated debate event there is, and the people in charge of the tournament decide it's a good idea to have people with NO BACKGROUND in policy judge us.  Needless to say, we won the debates (according to policy's standards), but the judges voted us down.  It was painful, sad, sickening, tearful, and depressing.  So I spent a lot of last week just wanting to stay in bed, because I care about debate quite a bit.

By the way, please read that link.  It's the absolutely hilarious and somewhat true explanation of policy debate.  I linked it directly to the solar implosion sub-section, but the rest is very entertaining.  My debate event is so crazily complicated and just plain awesome that Uncyclopedia has written about it!  I laughed so hard when I read this article... It is seriously one of the best internet findings, ever.

Ummm in other blog-worthy news, I worked for fifteen hours this weekend and went to see The Twelfth Night at VU.  Dear lord, it was hilarious.  I was a tad dubious in the beginning, because I honestly think that actors in plays try too hard... But towards the middle it became extremely entertaining, especially in the scene where Malvolio reads aloud the letter Mariah forged, and Toby and his friend are scrambling around the stage trying to hide from him... it makes me laugh just thinking about it.

You totally understood that last paragraph, didn't you?

A whole lot of nada.

So, I've been doing absolutely nothing.

I've been working on the EPS raglan, and I've been watching a whole lot of Lord of the Rings (Extended Editions, naturally).  I started the swatch for Hope's Scarf today.  I think my color knitting runs on a tighter gauge than my regular knitting, which is WONDERFUL.  But we'll see how it turns out when it's blocked... it'll probably all smooth out.  Hopefully.

I haven't even been working.  I haven't worked in about ten days.  I wish I could get some boring desk job or something, then I could do it at home and make some money.

I should be doing housework.  But, hey, who does that?  My grandmother's down in Dallas taking care of my really sick aunt, and since she's gone nobody in my house does anything remotely close to housekeeping.  Well, I went grocery shopping yesterday... does that count?  I need to clean my entire house, ha.  But I don't think I'm going to do that today because my sister/aunt is coming over tomorrow with my two nephews and they regularly trash my house, so what's the point of doing it now when I'd just have to do it again?  Exactly.

All in all, these past few days, I've just wanted to crawl under a rock and stay there.

Meh, oh meh.

I should be packing, but instead I'm cruising Ravelry looking for free sock patterns.  I'm trying to decide whether or not to start some new socks (bad Nicole!) or take along the EPS sweater.  I'm still not certain on what to do with that dropped stitch on the Monkey socks...

That's all for now.  See you on Sunday.

Moar knitting (and some mistakes)

I've been knitting for the past few days as solidly as my schedule will allow me... With school, state debate, and just plain old life in general, I can usually only knit for about an hour or two each day.  Knitting is stress relief for me, so it's kind of crucial I get it in.  Seriously.  Holding the needles and going through the familiar movements really calms me down.  People usually think the opposite when I end up swearing at my project (which happens quite frequently), but it's just more stress relief.

Here we see my most swore-at work in progress ever, the fabulous Monkey socks by Cookie A (found on Knitty).  It's really quite a simple pattern and well-written.  I would know because this is my first time ever knitting socks, and I can understand these directions pretty well.  It's not the pattern I ever curse at... usually it's my inability to knit correctly.  My latest curse-fest?  I dropped a stitch somewhere in the gusset.  Not making the gusset, but the lacework that forms the top of the sock in the gusset... It's in one of the purl triangles and I just now noticed it after making good headway into the foot.  AND I absolutely have NO idea what to do!  I'm not stressing out about it too much, but I don't think these socks can be worn by anyone when I finish them.  Which is a shame... if I wanted to create a pair of socks that were a wash, I would've been far better just knitting a pair of plain old stockinette socks.  I think that's what I'm going to do when I finish this sock.  Because I do need to finish something.

Meanwhile, progress on EPS raglan sweater continues.  Usually I knit the socks during free time at school (Spanish, personal finance, English, and SRT... all free classes!) and save the sweater for home.  That way I can make sure that some progress is being made on both projects everyday.  The EPS sweater is easy because I can just mindlessly knit it while watching Lord of the Rings.  Man oh man, will there ever be anything more uplifting than seeing Frodo and Sam succeed in saving Middle Earth, Merry and Pippin cheering, Aragorn get crowned king and then sweeping Arwen off her feet, and Sam getting his girl?  I just want to cheer and dance around every time I see the end of the movies.  Just thinking about it now makes me enormously proud and happy.

I'm proud of hobbits.

Anywho.  I've told myself that after I finish both the sweater and the socks, I can start on my blanket.  Hope's Scarf kind of falls somewhere in between... I measured a scarf that's the size my friend wants it to be, and the base of the triangle is five feet.  I'm scared.  And I still need to swatch for it so Bree and I can chart the pattern.

New!

Blanket.  Bought the yarn for it today.  Due to my crappy camera phone, the picture doesn't really do the yarn color justice -- it's really this nice warm toffee color.  I have a pound and a half of wool / 1561 yds there, ready to be knit up.  I was going to go with six balls, but they were on clearance and something inside of me whispered, What if you run out?

So I ran back in and got the seventh ball.  'Cause, you know, I don't have enough things to knit already.

FFXIII: Hope's Scarf

So, my friend and I have this idea.  To anyone who's played Final Fantasy XIII, my friend is in love with Hope and wants his scarf.  Of course, no one is selling a remake of this scarf, so she turned to the only person she knows who can make clothing - me.

For those of you who don't know what it looks like, here it is.  Basically I'd be doing a colorwork scarf of our own design (my friend drew the design, I'll have to chart it).  It's triangular in shape.  Looks pretty badass, if I do say so myself.  Yesterday we got the yarn and managed to match the colors almost precisely.

Today, the gauge swatch will be knit.

I just need to find time to knit everything  @_@

Hooks and Needles; Un Dia sin Zapatos

So two girls at my school decided to start a knitting and crochet club called Hooks and Needles, meeting every 5:30 on Mondays.  (Even though we met today.  We decided on Mondays after today.)  Four of us came today, plus the teacher who's sponsoring the club, and two more people are supposed to come on Monday.  So that'd make seven of us and I am so excited.  Everyone's really super nice, and everyone crochets except for me!  It's so weird, being in the minority.  I know how to do the basics of crochet, and everyone crocheting there made me want to start again.  One girl had this pattern book with instructions on how to make all sorts of things out of crochet, and I really want to make these containers.  They're made out of kitchen twine, and in the end they look like baskets.  Super cool.  It really made me think about expanding my textile crafts outwards.

I also taught that same girl to knit.  Almost everyone there expresses an interest in knitting, but only Mandy had knitting needles on her, so I taught her how to cast on, knit, and purl.  She caught on a lot quicker than other people I've taught, actually, but I suspect that's because she already knows how to crochet.  It's basically the same concept, really.  Loops through loops.

I was thinking on my way home that I should really start keeping a binder of all of my projects and what I use with each project.  Like a knitting journal-scrapbook hybrid.  It's a good idea... I'd need a lot of postage tape, though.  For laminated pages and whatnot.  And glue.  But other than that, I'd just need a three-hole punch and some printer paper.  A binder would be optimal because then I could put in a table of contents and never have to worry about flipping through pages and pages to find a specific pattern or running out of space in said table of contents.

Now, on to the non-knitting section...

Today is Un Dia sin Zapatos - A Day Without Shoes.

There is a company called TOMS Shoes (TOMS is from tomorrow, ultimately deriving from Shoes for Tomorrow Project).  For every pair of shoes you buy from them, they give a pair of shoes to a child in need.  There are lots of poor children in Africa and Latin America who cannot afford to have shoes, and the complications that can arise from constantly going barefoot in questionable conditions are serious.  They're pricey, but it's because you're essentially paying for two pairs of shoes -- one for yourself, and one for a child.

To raise awareness, every so often TOMS does an event called One Day Without Shoes.  The point of the day is to go the entire day, or even just a part of the day, barefoot to raise awareness about what it's like to not have the luxury of shoes.  Also, people see you and wonder, "Hey, why are you all barefoot?" and then you get to spread the word about TOMS.

So, the Interact Club from my high school did an event for the Day Without Shoes.  Apparently, it's against the health code at our school to go barefoot for the entire day, so we couldn't do that.  Instead we hosted a walk to a park about a mile away from the high school and back.  Today turned out to be a perfect choice for the day, because today is the one day that the weather was crappy, cold, and rainy!  A lot of people were complaining, but I thought that really drove home the purpose of the event.  Your feet are supposed to get snagged and hurt and sore.  That's the point.  People without shoes have to deal with this every day.  And since the conditions were crappy, it just made it worse.  There are others who have to go through so much more than we do, and the least we can do is sample a little bit of their suffering to really raise awareness.  We were pleased.  It was a good turn out.

And yes, my feet do hurt.  But I'm proud.  Help a child in need.

Jump for joy!

I am feeling like a million bucks, I tell you!

No, I didn't get any knitting done... shame.  Oh well.  It doesn't matter right now!  Today I finally got my financial aid letter in the mail from IU.  Over the past few months my grandmother has kept hinting about how there was this very real chance I might have to attend college around here and stay at home because she wouldn't be able to dredge up enough money for IUB tuition (which is ridiculously cheap).  So I've been worrying my ass off, because if I had to go to some place around here... well.  There's not a university near me that even offers my major - let's just keep it to that.  But a huge burden was relieved today, because IU's practically giving me a free ride.

I could SING!

I also worked five hours today, took an anatomy test that went well, got rained on, aaaand... yep.  I plan on eating a huge bowl of chocolate ice cream to both celebrate and make my day just a little bit better.

... have I mentioned my pile of personal finance, Japanese, and Spanish homework...?

Only Tuesday?

I don't know how it can only be Tuesday.  Seriously.  How is it not Thursday?  Then again, part of me should be very glad it's not Thursday... I already have so many things to do, and sitting here blogging instead of studying for a physiology and anatomy test tomorrow certainly isn't helping anything. 

I sat down on my bed about a half hour ago with the very relaxed notion that my window was open, lovely spring air was blowing in, the birds were singing, and I actually had some free time in order to get a few things done so my life wouldn't resemble the national debt.  This morning I had a battle with my bed, and my bed inevitably won, causing me to oversleep considerably and be late for school.  The extra sleep is nice, but there's always that little interim when I get home in which I long for a nap.  And unless I start doing something immediately, I will inevitably succumb.  Today I managed to avoid napping, and it just amazes me how much time there is in the day now!

In other news, I learned how to salsa and meringue today.  It was very, very fun.  I love dancing.

Hopefully tonight, more sock knitting will be done.  I've turned the heel successfully without fucking anything up (hooray!), and so now I just have the gusset to do.  Due to life, I haven't had much of an opportunity to knit, so very little progress has been done on my sock.  What a shame.

I have an urge to cast on so many things!  My next project is absolutely going to be a black, scoop neck vest to wear over a blouse.  Since I'm not one to buy patterns, I bet money that I will end up designing this myself.  But really.  How hard is it to design a simple, scoop neck vest?  But first, in order to figure out how the armholes work, I really need to finish the simple EPS sweater that I'm working on for my friend (and also his socks and beret...).  And, my other friend is in love with Final Fantasy XIII's Hope, and particularly with his scarf.  She's commissioned me to knit it for her, and so the project of designing it and charting the colorwork and actually knitting it will surely be interesting.  And did I mention that I am in a bargain for knitting socks for a friend, in return for kitty/dragon smut?  Bahaha.

So, things to knit:
1. Finish Monkey socks
2. Two pairs of plain old socks, one blue, one red.
3. EPS sweater
4. Two berets
5. Scoop-neck vest
6. Hope's scarf.

Ohhhhh, I can do this!!!

Happy Easter

This is what I did for about ten minutes today, which is far less time than I would have liked to be knitting:

 Happy Easter to all, even though I personally don't celebrate it.  But we had  lovely time with all the family and whatnot.  About three minutes after this was taken, I spent the majority of my time looking after my sister (2 years), my nephew (3 years), and my cousin (5 years).  Let the good times roll.

The weather was an absolute DREAM today.  It felt just like summer.