I am just, well, ...

...bleah. I've spent the last month trying to catch up from being out of town and haven't done a very good job. I am inundated with work and I can't seem to concentrate on much of anything. Except knitting. I've made considerable progress on my tank but I've been having trouble reading. Or even watching TV for that matter. My couch-potato skills are not working right now.

So instead of reading books, I've been buying quite a few of them. Confessions of a Spoilsport by William Dowling was a really good sports memoir about how Division 1a sports is ruining higher education; got a few more Barnes and Noble Shakespeare titles (Hamlet, King Lear, and Julius Ceasar); picked up the Portable Professor What a Piece of Work is Man (lectures about the seven great tradgedies of Shakespeare by Harold Bloom); the Wrinkle in Time boxed set; Michael Dirda's Classics for Pleasure; Ulysses (stop snickering). Someone stop me please!

In research-related news, I found out that we got the CDC grant that we applied for back before Easter. The acceptance came while I was in Europe. This means there are two ginormous, grant-funded multi-year studies to design and submit to IRB as well as the two clinical trials we are starting at Christmas. And the boss has yet to hire new grad RAs so it's just me doing all of this right now (oh, and the other RA who is useless, so let's not talk about that).

In other news, my youngest brother gets married this weekend. I don't even have a date. Meh. I'll go play with my neices.

Current book-in-progress: Wide Sargasso Sea for BNBC Literature by Women November, Classics for Pleasure, I finished re-reading the UK versions of TN1-4, Death in Venice and, oh, everything else I've started but not finished recently. I'm also entertaining a review of The Red Tent because Anita Diamant will be online at BNBC in November.
Current knitted item: After ripping out the aforementioned crappy dart shaping, I finished the front (the re-done darts look very nice) and I'm past the shaping on the back. Just a few more inches until I need to decrease for the straps. Then I really need to start on Christmas stockings. Oh, but I have to knit a scarf instead (I hate being volunteered for things) so I'm going to knit it with cotton yarn. Ick.
Current movie obsession: After dumping my digital cable (friggin' Internet still costs about $50, then basic cable another $50 - WTF?), I bumped up my Netflix. So I've been drooling over the nearly 400 movies in my queue (is it obvious that the selection is better than anything at the local rental places?) and have recently become obsessed with the Masterpiece Theatre adaptation of Gaskell's North and South. Richard Armitage is so gorgeous - in a few years he could be the next Rochester if there are any new Jane Eyre adaptations. N&S is probably going to be my next acquisition.

And one other thing...

While in Europe I popped up to Wales to visit my friend Katharine for a few days in Cardiff. If you have never visited her website, The Film Noir Experience, you should. She had a great new podcast called Curiosities and, well, she's just about the smartest person I've ever met.

Thanks for having me to visit, Katharine!!

Back from two weeks of living out of a suitcase

Dorothy Gale was right. There is no place like home.

Sorry for the utter lack of updates - I was either busy trying to get my life in order so I could leave for two weeks to Europe or I was in Europe whining about the lack of WiFi hotspots (do people not use wireless in Austria?) therefore making me too busy to bother. Don't get me wrong because I had a good time and am forever thankful to my parents for taking me with them; it's just nice to be home and sleep in my own bed again (complete with needy furballs).

Pictures later - I have thousands of varying quality and will need to sort them all.

I finished two books (We and An Introduction to the English Novel), started several more (Death in Venice, The Western Canon, The House of Mirth), bought about ten (including #1-4 of Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series in the UK paperback; was unable to find any published in German, hmph), and knit another 2.5 inches on my tank.

I am now back at work puzzling over an IRB application for an industry study and thinking mean thoughts about the pharmacy department for not wanting to provide an exhaustive list of topical medications (for yet another study). And I had to dig up my CV because we think we got a grant. Some things never change....

Current book-in-progress: I finished Cultural Amnesia before I left so now I'm chipping away at A Temple of Texts for my nighttime reading; I also need to get a leg up on The House of Mirth since that's BNBC Literature by Women for October
Current knitted item: I'm working on the bodice shaping for the tank (one of the darts did not go so well) and I'm starting my second sock; crap - I have Christmas stockings to finish/start.

Ta-daaahhh!!

I finished my first sock!!!!!!!!!!!

It actually looks like a sock AND it fits on my foot, despite all my worrying about making the foot too big. Apparently I have feet that large (feet just don't look at all big when you're looking down at them).

The only drawback to the toe-up sock was trying to get a strechy bind off. So three bind offs later - bind off in pattern of 2x2 rib (bind off edge was sooooo tight the cuff wouldn't even fit over my heel), a sewn cast-off for 2x2 rib (which was so confusing that after about 5 stitches I unpicked it and swore....a lot), a regular knit bind off (which looked really bizarre) - I bound off the cuff in half double crochet and that worked. Stretchy and not to wierd looking.

I'll have to put a picture up when I can find batteries for my camera (the digital camera is currently a battery-eating machine; boo).

In other knit-related news, I have a stuffed animal that resembles an Eeyore, minus ears and tail. It took six hours (gaaaahhhhh) but all the body seams are sewn and the little blighter is stuffed. Now I have to make another one.

And my ball winder arrived at the shop. Which is good because I'm going to need to wind the next ball for the tank and the sock.

Current book-in-progress: We by Yevgeny Zamyatin, Travels in West Africa by Mary Kingsley (for which I'm probably going to go to hell because I'm supposed to moderate it for the BNBC and I can't get past the first chapter), Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, and I'm chipping away at Cultural Amnesia (Clive James went on an anti-Sartre tirade; it was great).
Current knitted item: I have about 4.5 inches done on the tank and I'm starting my second sock.

Go me

I totally just had a kick-ass performance review. Hah!

I guess being an obsessive-compulsive detail freak really pays off some days. (Oh, and I got a birthday present of yarn from my boss - what shall I do with it?)

Current book-in-progress: Need to finish some things, but I checked out Everything I Needed to Know About Being a Girl I Learned from Judy Blume - really great personal essays about how Judy Blume's writing made a difference in young women's lives (of course, these women are all grown-up writers now)
Current knitted item: I have 3 inches done on the tank; I need a beer to get Eeyore's seams sewn. Bleah.

Another year gone

A little older, maybe a little wiser, who knows.

I bought more yarn. Hahaha. Ediye sent an email for $10 off my purchase during my birthday week. I don't think I need to explain how quickly that $10 got used up. I got yarn for my next project from Fitted Knits (U-neck tank), got some Noro Silk to remake the Sunflower Tam (dratted cats), and I found some really pretty blue-green/white varietaged yarn to make "Calorimetry" from knitty.com.

Oh, and I bought some books. Duh. I even finished some books, too. Go me. I finished Harry Potter and the Ivory Tower. Really interesting. I think it's be neat if they published a new edition with addenda after the essays. Also finished Wuthering Heights - again. That's for the BNBC group; now I just have to decide what threads to put up.

Current book-in-progress: Requiem for a Dream - I must have a thing for books about damaged people right now; I would also like to start Neil Gaiman's Stardust but I think I should try to polish off many of my unfinished items.
Current knitted item: Tank from Fitted Knits; I would really like to get the Eeyores done but the making up is giving me fits (he's got a pointy butt - what's that about??)

Good entertainment

Saw HP5 tonight. Overall, very good - I thought they did an excellent job of paring down the nearly 800 page book into a 2 hour movie that flowed very well. I wish the director had included a St. Mungo's scene because it's a very meaningful sequence in the book; they did cover the information nicely with a short exchange between Neville and Harry (I also missed Molly vs. the boggart and Kreacher "rescuing" all the Black heirlooms from the trash).

I thought it was really neat how we "flew" through all the newspapers everytime Fudge was putting out more fake news. Also the animation of the thestrals was great (a bit lacking on Grawp and the centaurs; too "CGI-ish" so it's pretty obvious they were drawn in).

Imelda Staunton - LOVE! She was so great as Umbridge. Got the 'hem-hem' down perfectly and the disgusting "Donna Reed on acid" attitude was dead on.

I even thought the previews were great. First up was The Water Horse - a really cute looking story about the origins of the Loch Ness monster starring Emily Watson and Ben Chaplin. Next was The Golden Compass (I think it'll be going by the title "Northern Lights" in the UK) and while there weren't extended sequences (the animation might not be quite finished) it looks kick-ass. There was a 5 second sequence showing Iorek Byrnison causing some damage and it looked good. Then there was 10,000 BC which was also pretty choppy (releasing in 2008) but I'm just not that jazzed about a mammoth hunter movie. Disney is going to poke fun at a genre that's exclusively it's own with Enchanted, which also looks totally cute but also pretty inane, so I will probably wait until the DVD comes out to watch. Then there was Fred Claus (there might have been a sixth review, but it must not have been memorable) which, depending on my Christmas cheer, I might go and see because watching Vince Vaughn and Paul Giamatti fight with each other, as Fred and Santa Claus respectively, was pretty funny. I hope it's not the kind of comedy where all the good bits are in the preview.

Current book-in-progress: Reading a really good essay in The Ivory Tower and Harry Potter where the author examines the characters' moral development in the novels using a tool developed by a Harvard researcher. Pretty interesting.
Current knitted item: The last HP surprise

This is why Friday can't get here fast enough

Not so I can read the last HP book (bonus), but because all the security and secrecy is completely unreal.

Check out this Yahoo article about the security at B&N - the reporters can't reveal the location of the warehouse. Neither can I, nyah-nyah (in reality not particularly "nyah-nyah" since I don't know which warehouse the books are at in the first place).

Current book-in-progress: Articles about Wharton's The Buccaneers - there's surprisingly not much scholarship about the book, but since the edition I read had about 1/4 "created" by the editor in an attempt to finish the book I'm not too surprised.
Current knitted item: The last HP surprise

The End of Dewey?

In yet another instance of idiocy, the Perry Branch of the Maricopa County Library District has done away with the Dewey Decimal System and gone to grouping on category like B&N. The librarians did this because people came to browse which, to me, implies that it is too hard to browse the DDS and that the general public isn't particularly intelligent. Oh come on, I browsed as a kid with the DDS. The CR Public Library has the category names for the DDS listed next to the DDS numbers so you always knew what subject you were looking for.

The other disgusting thing about the article was that the library was displaying Paris Hilton's crappy book and that there's no card catalogue. Great. So now we're developing a generation who will have no idea how to adequately perform research (anybody ever tried to guess how the Library of Congress system works? it's not very browser-friendly).

Current book-in-progress: The Ivory Tower and Harry Potter (found an article in which I'm pretty sure the author didn't actually read any of the HP books - said Hermoine was a half-blood Muggle and that professor Flitwick was mean); I finished The Master and Margarita
Current knitted item: The last HP surprise

Alright, my fellow feminists

Get on the horn to the politicians. If no one's heard about this story from Nebraska, then I'll fill you in. The victim was having a drink at a local bar and then next thing she knew she woke up in a stranger's bed with him doing the nasty to her. So she went to the hospital, had a rape-kit done, the police arrested the guy and charged him with first-degree sexual assault. At the trial in Lincoln the judged decided certain words were inflammatory and inferred guilt - words like "rape," "forced," "victim," you get the picture. So pretty much everyone has to commit perjury because the victim can't say she was forced to have sex, the attorneys can't refer to a rape kit, and to top it all off the jury wasn't even told the judge had imposed an order. I think the first trial ended in a mistrial. Well, the second trial was ordered to obey what is essentially a gag order and was declared a mistrial this week. To top it off, a motion to have the judge's ruling was rejected in Nebraska state court because the victim's attorney was from Boston and she didn't have a Nebraska license (the attorney had filed a motion to practice but this was turned down, too).

The article about the NE Supreme Court is here.

I'm not sure how many people read this blog, but if you do - get the word out to your state senators, reps, presidential candidates anybody. Tell them that we won't sit still and watch while our rights to our own bodies are frittered away by a mysogynistic judge.

Current book-in-progress: Too busy reading the news
Current knitted item: Too grouchy

This was more interesting about 20 years ago

So some guy in Oregon turned his lawnchair into a hot-air balloon. Pretty sure it was more interesting when Cutter John from the Bloom County comic strip did the same thing in about 1985 - only Opus somehow got tangled up in the mooring lines and went along with. Then Cutter got captured by the Russians and was traded for Bill the Cat (who apparently was a Communist spy, who knew?) and Opus, who the Russians left behind, wandered his way back to Bloom County with a severe case of amnesia.

Definitely more interesting than floating from Oregon to Idaho.

Please tell me there are more fans of Bloom County out in cyberspace than just geeky-ol' me.

Current book-in-progress: The Ivory Tower and Harry Potter (the articles are really interesting)
Current knitted item: I looked at the kntting, does that count (there was another grant due, ack)?

Down in front...

Went to see the Joffrey Ballet this evening. They've been on tour in Iowa celebrating Hancher Auditorium's 35th Anniversary - totally awesome, FREE (bonus), outdoor performance. Some of my favorite pieces: "Sometimes it Snows in April" from Billboards, the Grand pas from Nutcracker (performed by my two favorite Joffrey dancers, Maia Wilkins and Willy Shive), and Light Rain (if you saw Altman's "The Company", you saw part of the first section). Untitled (a Pilobolus piece I'd only seen pictures of) was very interesting, very athletic, too, for the guys since Pilobolus choreography is amazing in how it uses the human body to make shapes, balancing acts, etc. Slight disappointment in the new piece (of which I can't remember the name) - it was definitely not reminicent of "sultry tropical nights" and looked more like a contest to see who could develope higher disguised as a teenager's version of being sultry - pastiche. Someone needed a tango lesson (since I think that was the vibe) but the music was all rhumba-y. God I miss my ballet class.

For being Iowa in July, the weather was perfect. Once the sun went behind the trees we had shade and there was a nice breeze off the river.

Current book-in-progress: The Ivory Tower and Harry Potter
Current knitted item: knitting....yeah, I should do some of that