oceantheorem: (knit yarn little time)
November ended on a pretty good note.

I finished Kayla and Ben's wedding blanket. I finished my 5,000-bead lace shawl. I finished my grad school applications.

I only got to 19k words in NaNoWriMo. I feel a little guilty about this. But I really don't think I could have expected myself to finish, with everything else going on.

Jim and I got to spend a week in Reno for Thanksgiving, which was awesome. I got to hang out with my mom (we went to a yarn store and neither of us bought ANYTHING--it was incredible) and see my little sister (she's definitely cute). And just before we left, my parents lent us their third car and we got to take a quick road trip to San Francisco and Santa Cruz. Since I've got my grad apps in and we're crossing our fingers at least one of the schools accepts me, we took half a day to look at some houses in the region. Most of what we looked at was ~30 minutes outside of San Francisco, so hopefully we can find something reasonably priced on a BART or a bus line and I'll be able to commute in fairly easily. I'm not insane, so I refuse to drive in, but it's likely I might have to drive to a BART station... which would suck. It would be much better if I could walk or bike.

Anyway. PLENTY of time to think about these things next summer, if I do get in somewhere. Please please please cross your fingers for UCSF.

And now... pictures!

Me working on the Shipwreck on the steps of Grace Cathedral in San Francisco.


I love Grace Cathedral. Jim had never been there before (obviously... it being only his second trip to California, and the first having been with me in February, when we went only to Pier 39), and we got really lucky and ran into a docent who was giving a tour inside. So we followed the tour for about 20 minutes and learned some fun things about the Cathedral and San Francisco's history.
Also, did you know there was never a Saint Barbara? The church made her up. It was some sort of ploy to get people to convert, but I don't remember exactly what the docent said the motivation was, not knowing much about Saint Barbara.


Done, and spread out on the kitchen floor! Boyfriend and Mom included for size reference.




It needs to be blocked--the lace will open up a lot more and it will get a LOT bigger. But isn't it gorgeous already???

Remind me to take a detail shot of the beads when I take blocking pictures. It's just stunning in person. I wish my camera could capture it!

I will post pictures of Kayla and Ben's blanket once it has safely reached them. :-)

Also, I need a new project now....

oceantheorem: (airplane)
So, I spent the weekend in Reno. And before that I spent Christmas and New Year's here in New Haven, largely by myself, and had a fabulous vacation during which I said I would go to work but really just sat around the house playing Warcraft and watching a TON of West Wing. And I got a kitten. She's a very tiny 11-month-old orange tabby whom I have finally decided to name Claire, although she was very nearly a Thomasina and a Guinevere. If I am not completely exhausted by the end of this post, I'll upload some pictures.

Christmas was great. I'm really glad I decided to stay here instead of spending it with my parents. I had a very low-key day. I cooked a turkey and had three of my labmates over, and we ate a ton of food and drank homemade eggnog and two bottles of wine and then watched the Emperor's New Groove. We also played cards and sat around talking for a while. I've got amazing labmates, and this is by far the best Christmas on memory. No stress, no pressure, no worrying about spending money on gifts people may or may not like. The week after was pretty similar. I didn't go into lab, even though I really should have. I think I really needed the time off (I think I could really use a decade off, after quals), and I didn't even have the energy to feel guilty about slacking (which is really saying something!!). I went cat-hunting for three days after Christmas and finally brought Claire home on December 30th.

For New Year's, Aaron had a couple people over, and we ate pizza and drank really terrible vodka and I learned how to play Guitar Hero. I'm fantastically bad at Guitar Hero. It was a great New Year's, and for the first year EVER I did not cry AND for the first year ever I had someone to kiss at midnight. It was great. Again, it was low-key and very relaxing and I just don't know why more people don't avoid going home for the holidays.

I went home on Thursday, just to spend this weekend with my parents and Elena, and we had a pretty good time. There was a huge blizzard on Friday and into Saturday, so Saturday morning we took Elena sledding, which really meant Phil pulled her up and down a small hill in a sled, while she yelled in her tiny two-year-old voice, "More? More?" Then she spent the rest of the weekend yelling, "No!! No!!!!" which we finally realized meant, "Snow," or, more accurately, "Please bring me a bowl of snow so I can eat it."
All in all, it was a pretty decent weekend. I had a couple of really good conversations with my mom, and I think I have largely decided that I'm sticking it out until the end of the semester and then I'm saying Screw You to graduate school and am finding something better to do with my life. I have no idea what that Something Better will be, or if I'll end up just taking a one-year leave of absence or a permanent opt-out, but at any rate it was neat to talk about leaving school with my mom and not have her tell me flat-out that it's a terrible idea and I'm wasting my life. We watched the series finale of Gilmore Girls Sunday night before I left and we both cried. It was a good bonding thing. I think we're doing better now.

Anyway, I feel a lot better now. Stuff with my mom is on the mend, my little sister is exponentially more fun than the last time I saw her and is clearly a brilliant little kid, I've decided I'm getting out of this miserable miserable grad school experience, I bought a cat, and I currently have a very good relationship with Aaron. I think my life is still in SERIOUS need of some shaping up and taping back together, but for this moment right now, I'm okay. I am not a trainwreck. At how many points in my life have I really been able to say that I'm not a trainwreck? It's kinda nice.

Unexpected babbling (and a strange dearth of commas) about the above decision that should maybe be in a friends-locked post but isn't going to be, so deal with it. )

I'm gonna go make some more tea now.

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