I'm Still Here! (Really!)

Wow! I haven't posted here in a really long time! So much has happened in the past 8 months!

First, school: Over the past 2 semesters (spring/summer 2011 and fall 2011) I finished my on-campus coursework. This semester (winter 2012) I am taking a couple of on-line courses and working at a full-time internship in a public school. The end is in sight! I'm working with elementary-age kids with a variety of speech and language disorders, from articulation disorders to the autism spectrum. It's challenging, but the kids are great and I love my supervisor!

In January, the whole class took (and passed, whew!) the department exam, which covered everything we learned over the past 5 semesters. Two weeks after that, most of us (all but 2, I believe) took the Praxis test, which is the national test that is required for licensure and our C's (the C's are the "Certificate of Clinical Compentence," which is abbreviated "CCC-SLP" for speech pathologists and "CCC-AuD" for audiologists - hence, "C's"). We got our scores on the Praxis on February 7th, and I'm proud to say that I passed with a very good score!

I also published my final newsletter for the student organization, and passed that responsibility on to the next class historian. I'm quite looking forward to getting my first newsletter from her to see what she will do with it!

In March, I will be presenting a paper from my Dysphagia class (last summer) at the Michigan Speech-Language and Hearing Association's annual conference in Kalamazoo, along with 5 of my classmates. I'm a bit nervous, I have to say. Of course, I've given any number of presentations over the past couple of years (if you look back, you'll see some past commentary on group projects), but this is the first one I've given that isn't primarily in front of my classmates or other students. This will be in front of professional SLP's who might very well (I assume nothing, of course) know more about the topic than I do. But it will be fine - my professor wouldn't have asked us to present if she didn't think the papers we wrote were good, right? Because it would reflect badly on her if they were lame. I'll still stress a bit about it because that's what I do.

So, that's school. Graduation is in May, and I need to start looking for a job now, but I'll post more about that later. On to the knitting!

In December, I made a really excellent driving cap for my husband, using the Morgan pattern by Anne Kuo Lukito from http://www.knitty.com/. It came out awesome, if I do say so myself, and he loved it!

Also finished some socks I started (*cough*) three years (*cough*) ago:

I also finished a couple of other projects, but I'll finish posting them later. This post is already getting long.

Profanity

I know I haven't posted in a while, but I saw a post on Samurai Knitter's blog today that got me thnking, and I wanted to comment. But my comments kept growing and I decided (like at least one other reader there) to just give it a whole post of it's own.

Like Alwen, I kind of subscribe to the theory that words have power, and the more seldom you use certain words, the more impact they will have when you do use them. I rarely swear, so when I do, it means something. I am either making a point, and people are shocked enough by it to pay attention, or I am extremely frustrated and it is really cathartic. (I also have a very even temper as a general rule, and a really long fuse, but when I reach the end of that fuse, the resulting explosion can be heard two counties away, and my husband cowers in fear.)

I find that I tend to have a low opinion of people who curse with every other word out of their mouths - whether for right or wrong, I tend to think that they aren't intelligent enough to express themselves without resorting to the lowest common denominator. Just my own personal bias. I don't find "comedians" who swear constantly funny either.

My son knows most of the common swear words, but we've always told him that part of being mature enough to know them is knowing when it's appropriate to use them (and it's almost never appropriate for a 10-year-old to use them!), so he doesn't use them gratuitously either. He hears us finding creative and eloquent ways to express frustration and anger, and my hope is that he will do the same.

That being said, in the right context, swearing can be hysterically funny - one of my favorite scenes from the movie "Four Weddings and a Funeral" is the opening sequence, where Hugh Grant is rushing around, running late, and muttering to himself "Fuck, fuck, fuckity-fuck-fuck-fuck!" Makes me laugh every time!

Happy New Year!

A new year needs a new look!

Well, we made it past the holidays intact! I finished the mittens I was working on for my friends, and they were successfully gifted last Sunday. I wish I'd gotten pictures of the recipients wearing them (Scott said he would never take his off - I think that might eventually get awkward, but it's not up to me), but here are pics of the finished products anyway:

These are a Brooklyn Tweed pattern by Jared Flood (love Jared's patterns!) called Strago (Ravelry link). They are made out of alpaca, and the pattern was just perfect for my friend Mark.

These are Scott's. They are felted, and I think they will be extremely warm, but the thumb on this pattern was a big disappointment - it's huge! I don't think any normal human being has a thumb that is that long in proportion to their hand, and I wish I had realized that the thumbs would not felt down enough when I was knitting them. But Scott loved them, and that is what matters.

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Now I'm working on a scarf for my husband's aunt to give to a friend of hers as a birthday gift. It's going slowly, probably because I would rather be working on something for myself! But, she is paying for this scarf, so it would be a good thing if I were to finish it quickly.

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We are going to a family birthday party tomorrow - we always celebrate the birthdays that are grouped close together at one party, so the aforementioned aunt (whose birthday was yesterday), my sister-in-law (whose birthday is tomorrow), and I (my birthday is Tuesday) are celebrating tomorrow. Should be fun.

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That's all for now - hope your year is starting out well!

I Can Breathe Again!

Took my last final today, and my first semester of grad school is now history! I'm just glad that I can relax for a couple of weeks, do a little knitting (still have a mitten to finish before Christmas, a scarf to finish for my husband's aunt before January, and a second sock for myself that I started back in September), read a few trashy novels, and maybe organize some bookshelves. Not too ambitious. Oh, and put together my clinical portfolio. Can't forget that.

I'm not even going to stress over grades (although I do know that I did not 4.0 this semester - I have at least one B+. I'll live.

I think I want to make some cashew brittle tonight, after the boy and I decorate the Christmas tree (which we still have to buy). And I need to make sure that his big gift actually works. (Don't tell him, but his cousin in Phoenix sent us his Wii, because he never uses it anymore, so that's the boy's big gift this year and I didn't have to spend $200. My nephew totally rocks!) Other than that, Christmas will be light this year.

Another school year, another head bump...

At least this year's call wasn't nearly as bad as last year's! There I was, sitting in the basement of the Rackham building with my group, working on our presentation for our Neuroscience class next week, when my phone rang and an unfamiliar number popped up. Turns out it was the school nurse at my son's school, calling from the clinic where the boy was sitting with ice on his head. Apparently, his head collided with another student's knee while the class was gathering for reading time. Tears ensued, as did a trip to the clinic for ice and the requisite call to Mom.

I told the nurse that it was much better than the call I received from school the previous fall, when the boy couldn't stop in time while playing freeze-tag in gym, and crashed face-first into a light switch. That time there was a nosebleed, and a light switch-shaped cut on his forehead, and bruises. He has a sort of mini-Harry Potter scar now, only it isn't quite shaped like a lightning bolt - more like an upside-down T right in the middle of his forehead.

This is a tradition I can do without!

Yes, that light at the end of the tunnel is an oncoming train...

Okay, it's been a couple of months since my last post (again!). I finished Tour de Fleece pretty well, with 5 finished skeins of yarn:

That's two skeins of BFL on the right, spun on my wheel; the pink Romney next to them is my first-skein of spindle-spun, so I am inordinately proud of it, even though I find it a bit scratchy; next to that is another skein of spindle-spun from a mixed batt of Falkland, merino, alpaca, and mohair - it was a bear to keep even, but turned out really pretty. The last one is a skein of Lisa Souza Wensleydale that I spun on the wheel, and it is lovely (maybe a tad overspun, but lovely nonetheless) and almost laceweight. Here's one more picture collage of all of them:

In other news, the boy and I drove to Grand Rapids a couple of weeks ago to visit Fredrick Meijer Gardens with my mom. It's a pretty cool place, and if you live within reasonable driving distance of Grand Rapids, Michigan, it's well worth the trip - especially if you have kids. The children's garden is really cool, and the other item well worth seeing is the Da Vinci Horse. The boy loves it.

They also had an exhibit of glass sculpture by Dale Chihuly while we were there (that was actually the primary reason I wanted to go - we've seen the horse before, but the glass was a limited time exhibit). It's there through the end of September, 2010. Very cool.

Close-up of that towering thing up above.

These reminded me of pitcher plants

. . . . like these.

Also, since it's September, my son started 5th grade last week, and I started my master's program the week before that, and I already feel like I've been hit by that train! I shouldn't even be taking the time to post this, but I needed the break from studying and reading and taking notes and filling out forms, and the semester is only two weeks old.

Whine, whine, why yes, I would love some cheese to go with it.

And yet, I know I will really enjoy it, once I get the time management thing down. I've never been very good at that.

Just needed to vent for a minute. I'm okay now - going back to studying, since I have two quizzes this week and I still need to make a grocery list to go shopping tomorrow and do laundry. G'night.

Tour de Fleece 2010

I've decided to participate in the Tour de Fleece - yeah, it's a last minute thing. I'm all about the last minute. Anyway, my goals for the Tour are pretty modest, but I think they're attainable

• Finish a couple of spinning WIPs I have going


• Get more consistent with my drop spindle


• Finish my first skein of spindled yarn (2-ply)

And that's all of them! I would have added one about spinning the dog fluff I have from last spring when my niece's dogs were staying with us, but I don't have any carders to process it yet.

So, here is my first progress picture:

I've been working on that pink Romney batt since last August, when I got my first drop spindle in a swap. It's been sitting for months, and I hardly ever pull it out because I'm so comfortable on the wheel that I almost always turn to it when I want to spin. But I can take the drop spindle with me, so I really want to get comfortable on it as well for traveling.

I got 4 oz. of the undyed BFL in a swap last summer sometime, and I just started spinning it up last month, but its been sitting for a couple of weeks and I don't want to let it sit too long. So this is 2 oz of it (I think - I didn't weigh it before I started, but there are about 2 oz left). I'm going to spin the last 2 oz on another bobbin and see how close I can get to even with them.

I'm really enjoying spinning both these fibers - when they are going well, they go really well! And the BFL is especially nice!