Category Archives: grad school

exam (knitting) prep.

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So this morning I made an important decision: I settled on my exam knitting project. I know I said I was going to get going on the second sock, but I’m decreasing the first toe right now, and I just don’t think I’m going to feel like kitchenering and knitting the ribbing on sock #2 before Tuesday. Which means I need something pretty and soothing to knit on, just a little bit, this week.

Lately I have become obsessed with Veera’s Stripe Study Shawl, especially the versions that are made in neutrals. I want this one — but I want to knit it out of my stash. This morning I went stash-diving, coffee in hand. I came up with some gorgeous color combinations, but I’m just in love with the idea of natural/grey. Ideally, the grey would be less severe, but this Trekking Pro Natura in a charcoal-ish tone is what I’ve got in the right weight and yardage, so I’m going to give it a go. This natural yarn is local, organic wool, and I’ve got almost 800 yards, which means I’ll be able to use it again in another stripey shawl. Yay!

Unrelated, but I snapped some pictures of Boh making his crazy face.

It might look like he’s not having a good time, but trust me: this is the face he makes when he is very happy about being scratched. He almost looks like he has bug-eyes! Silly dog.

Last night some of my cohort got together for a delicious dinner at E.’s place: homemade pizza and two colors of Jello! I made salad with farm spinach I picked in the greenhouse last weekend, and it reminded me of how excited I am for spring and summer vegetables. Today I’m going to try to crank through the big ideas of a handful of books so that I can keep my plan of a book-free Monday. Knitting, dog-walking, yoga, good food: all of these are on the list.

no licking library books!

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I snapped this sequence of photographs before lunch yesterday. Strangely, I take comfort in this behavior: it is how I know that Boh is my dog. He’s no longer interested in chewing on shoes; instead, he licks library books. I know, Boh. Some old books have a particularly intoxicating scent. I realize it probably isn’t the best idea to deeply inhale when I enter the library stacks, but I still do — that smell, that feeling — well, it’s part of why I’m an aspiring historian. Can I really blame Boh for wanting to lick a library book or two? “No licking library books!” Not exactly the kind of statement one ever expects to need to say out loud. I laugh every time.

Thanks for your kind words about my last post. Thursday’s tears had to do with general exhaustion as well as a particular task related to this first exam: writing the question. I regrouped and re-thought (and slept a full-night’s sleep — with the windows open), and we had another meeting on Friday.

This week is going to be intense, but I have a better sense of what I am going to do. This weekend I’m going to work through a handful of books, and then I’m taking Monday OFF. I might go to bed at 8…

Happy weekend!

tears.

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Yep. Tears. In my chair’s office today. Sigh. I’m just so tired, and struggling to get a handle on the last of my exam prep. I’m just so ready to be done with this part of the process, and it is only beginning.

I came home, cleared my head (by filling it with a pretty standard rom-com type movie), and now I’m curled up here on the couch with Boh, working through possibilities for the big chunk of writing I’m going to produce (ready or not) for part one of my comprehensive exams.

I have not been doing a very good job of letting off steam this week — and I need to be better, especially if I am going to do my best work come Tuesday. (Maybe that means I’ll actually finish that sock?)

Thanks for all the encouragement here in blogland, folks. Back to it.

(Apologies for the crappy phone pictures — I couldn’t bear to move Boh in order to retrieve my camera…)

books and hummus.

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Today: tortillas, hummus from the co-op, and a pouting pooch. And books. Always, books. My first exam starts a week from today, which means it was time for the requisite laptop scare.  (It slid, very slowly, off of a chair in a library cafe yesterday. It was inside its neoprene sleeve, inside my bag, and only fell about 18 inches, and woke up from sleep without any problems, but I still spent part of my morning  a) being paranoid and b) reading internet support forums and running diagnostic tests just to be sure.)

Everything appears to be fine. Still.

It was warmer (read: 45) and sunny today, which meant that I put on my coat and opened up the windows for a bit. Sunshine helps with everything. More soon!

mirror, mirror.

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Idlewood. Again. Clearly I need to make another — after my exams. I snapped this picture before heading to one of my reading groups, where we discussed an excellent graphic novel (Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home) and talked about memoir, history, and voice — and about what makes something not feel self-indulgent. Which got me to thinking about blogging, especially because lately I’ve been snapping pictures of whatever I’m wearing (knits or otherwise) and posting them here. (Which seems incredibly narcissistic.)

On some level, blogging is self-indulgent. Really, all writing is. And I’m okay with that. The question we were wrestling with on Thursday night had more to do with the reader’s experience than the decision to write (or blog), and we kept returning to things like empathy, linking the ordinary and the particular to bigger (in this case, literary) themes, leaving space for interpretation rather than limiting how the reader understands and situates a particular moment, encounter, memory.

I want to think more about blogging as a form and as a personal process. How do conversations about blogging connect with discussions about memoir? In these genres, how do form and content interact? Can we identify conventions particular to blogging? In my own work, I’m thinking a lot about how I use the first person — what am I signally by choosing the personal pronoun? Am I actually revealing something personal, or is it a technique to make the reader identify with the “I”? (I’ve taken to calling this the “pretend personal” voice.) How much do I protect or reveal — here? In my academic writing? Once I’m on the other side of these exams, I’d like to spend some time (and space, maybe here?) thinking through, or maybe more accurately, writing with these questions.

Time for another picture of what I’m wearing? Clearly.

No knits in this shot, just a scarf that hasn’t been in rotation for awhile. Still faking it ’til I make it, and most days, I think it’s working. I managed to grade 10 papers yesterday, all dressed up. (She says, still in her pajamas.)

I knit less than five rows on this sock, and soon I’ll be ready to start decreasing for the toe. Ideally, I’ll finish the first sock this week, cast on the second and get through the ribbing before my first exam. That way I’ll have easy knitting handy to help with hard thinking.

Finished the carrot soup leftovers yesterday. There is another pot of this in my (near) future.

old school.

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Another score from my mom’s closet. This is my mom’s ski vest, likely from the late 1970s, when she and my dad belonged to a ski club called the Schussmeisters. Or something like that. I love the way the stripes wrap around to the back.

Alright. Almost done with my first mug of coffee, and I’m going to need another before I start today’s pile. (Read, write, grade, [sleep?] repeat.)

Hello, Tuesday.

office.

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I snapped this picture of my office with my phone yesterday. The collection of beers on my desk is starting to look suspicious. The Beer Fairy leaves bottles of tasty brew in my mailbox, which I then bring to my office. I haven’t figured out how to transport these home (without, of course, bringing an empty 6-pack to work with me) — I don’t exactly want disaster to strike my computer or the stack of library books often in my tote bag, so they stay on my desk to function as a kind of reward.

Sigh. Back to work. Thanks for letting me take a pouting break, dear internet. Is it bad that I am already daydreaming of May?

terra, tretorns, and everything in between.

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Literally. See, I finally uploaded about thirty pictures from my camera, and they start with my progress on terra’s lace, and end with my new rain boots, acquired in a ridiculous end-of-winter clearance. Let the show and tell begin.

Terra. I’ve got less than ten rows remaining, but these are some loooong rows. I am so excited about this shawl, but it’s probably going to be mid-March before I finish it. And I’m okay with that.

Homemade pizza with local swiss chard that I picked, blanched, and froze at the end of fall. Making pizza for one means leftovers!

Idlewood in action. Again. This might be the most wearable sweater I’ve ever knit, and is part of the uniform I think I’m accidentally adopting. Part project fake-it-til-you-make-it, part I-really-hate-it-when-winter-slush-and-salt-soak-the-bottoms-of-my-jeans, I’m realizing that some combination of leggings, boots, shorter skirts or dresses and slouchy, layered sweaters seems to be what I’m wearing most days. Somehow it seems to fit with 29. I can’t explain it.

Boh has the right idea. Usually he gets up with me, but lately, as soon as I groan and turn off the alarm, he settles into some part of the warmth I’ve generated, and I get up to make the coffee. Cuteness.

Yes, that’s right. I received a valentine in the mail from dear friend E., and this is what I found when I opened the rather battered and clearly re-taped envelope. At least the candy thief opted to reseal and re-mail the envelope. The valentine is of course the part that matters to me, and the whole thing gave me a good laugh yesterday, which might have been just what I needed after a long day on campus. Plus, it gave me a great story to leave on E.’s voicemail.

Rubber rain boots. Necessary for spring. Also, for lake houses. (Yay!)

The madness of desk #2, above, is a good indication of how frazzled things are right now. I’m not sure about my posting frequency these next few months — I’ll be here, but there might be lots more of these disjointed “show and tell” style posts for awhile, and a little less knitting. And I’ve clearly been more than a little delinquent in the land of comments. I’m going to do my best, but I have no idea what I’ll have time and energy for. I’m planning to read until I can’t read anymore for the next six weeks, and then my exams begin. Let’s just agree that if all goes well, there will be lots more knitting, spinning, cooking, and blogging come May! Thanks for being here in the meantime.

competitive paint-by-number.

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That’s right. Last night I attended the first annual [alcohol-fueled] paint-by-number competition. I already can’t wait for next year. A colleague of mine in the department came up with this incredible idea, and, inspired by the problematic and inappropriate depiction of a native woman (complete with spirit eagle, wolf, etc.) in this kit, planned a competition between two teams: Pocahontas and John Smith, with the prize (of course) of a map of the state of Virginia, as well as bragging rights associated with having the winning creation hung in the office of said colleague, who shares her office with a friend (also present last night) who works on issues of race and gender, and the representation of native women in early America. If we can’t eliminate these representations, I guess we might as well do the paint-by-number…

First of all, this was way more complicated than the paint-by-number kits I remember. This involved 18 colors, as well as mixing colors 1-18 to create shades labeled A through X.

Yours truly, working on the spirit eagle’s wings.

Here you can see a bit more of the “competition.” Timed, side-by-side painting for each color, complete with painter’s smocks and penalty drinks for the painter to complete less of his/her color. (Ginger beer for me, as I was driving.)

Team Pocahontas’ creation: in a re-writing of history we all could appreciate, they won Virginia. (And continued to paint, filling in missed areas from earlier rounds to finish off their masterpiece.)

Everyone brought deliciousness: homemade bread*, tater-tot hot dish, peanut-butter cookies, and our host made pasta with broccoli raab and fancy mixed drinks. I brought my mom’s artichoke dip. Despite the competition, it was a laid-back, relaxed night of mostly history-department folks, and a chance to be a little silly among friends.

*Delicious bread — and all of the photos in this post — supplied by my dear friend K.