My excitement for my trip has waned considerably. We went from 8 people to 3. Try booking hotel rooms for 3 people. Two adult girls in a twin bed is NOT my idea of a vacation! As such, we're trying to either find a fourth or find a package cheap enough to cover the cost of a nonexistent fourth person. This trip was supposed to be a de-stressor and I'm stressed out about it!!

On the plus side, I finished a crappy draft of a difficult-ish chapter and sent it off to some colleagues to proofread. This means I can enjoy some of my weekend, knowing that I actually accomplished a drop in the thesis bucket this week.

Also making great progress on Jen's sandworm mittens. I confessed to her last week that it'll be hard to give them up!

Overwhelmed and understated

February's just around the corner and I'm really starting to get excited for my trip!

Lizz: I just hope we have good weather. If we have one rainy day, I'll be really bummed out.

me: That can be our yucky hangover day.

Lizz: I don't plan to be sober enough to have a hangover.

The funny thing is she really means it.

My arms really hurt from playing Nintendo Wii

I guess it's only fair that after a very productive and reassuring week, I have a week like this one. So much to do, so little time!

This afternoon is my second discussion group, and I'm expecting a larger turnout because the midterm is coming up. I'm kinda unprepared... my prof sent me her lecture notes, but my dad has the worst printer EVER so I can't print them (it requires you to feed it pages of pager, one at a time, or it jams. You can't just leave a stack for it to feed. That, and it is incredibly slow)

I also have a stack of T.A. assignments to correct (remember those?) plus the ever-present thesis.

I really like Bladerunner.

It's funny; it's supposed to be set in like, 2019 which is not too distant in the future, but there are flying cars and the architecture is totally different yet still looks old somehow, etc. Funny. Funnier still that Pris is seen wearing leg warmers which have been in and out of style twice since the movie came out.

Today I work the store until 4 and then I have a brief T.A. meeting for marking. I did a lot of good work on that chapter yesterday. I think that if I give it a good polishing tonight/tomorrow morning, I can fire it off to a couple of colleagues to proofread right away. I had hoped to get it to my supervisor by the end of the month and now that's starting to look possible.

I finally made guage for the sandworm mittens last night; I needed to go down TWO needle sizes!! I have to say, I really do hate swatching. Part of my love for knitting involves patience, and I really do have a lot of patience. But I don't like wasting my time, and spending as little as half an hour working up a teeny rectangle to measure and then promptly rip out and do again with another needle size is wasting my time.

I guess the fact that I found guage at 2 sizes smaller is a testament to the importance of swatching. For those of who you don't knit or just don't know what I'm talking about, you have to use trial and error to make sure your stitches are coming out the same size as the pattern designer's stitches. If they don't, the dimensions of your final product will be skewed (a way bigger waste of time).

I'd like to have these mittens done by the end of January too. Last night when I was freezing coming home I thought of Jen's fingers!