Category Archives: grad school

objectivity and bias.

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As an aspiring historian, I am certainly sensitive to questions of objectivity and bias. (In the realm of full disclosure, I don’t think history is about the pursuit of truth so much as the exploration of an expansive/infinite number of alternate tellings, re-tellings, and interpretations of the past, necessarily colored by the historian’s “present,” whenever/whatever that may be. I don’t think objectivity should be the goal. I’d rather we focused on interrogating our own perspectives biases interests contexts as part of wrestling with what how why we are arguing whatever we’re arguing.)

Anyway, Boh must have read your comments, because he called me on this. He wondered (to no one in particular, though I was the only one here) why certain people (ahem) think very carefully about how to accurately represent their sources in some contexts, but are perfectly happy to misrepresent, oh, I don’t know, a certain four-legged and important member of this household.

Boh wants you to know that he does not sleep all day. He does very important things.

You never take pictures of me doing other things. That’s why they think that. Show them that I can catch my ball! That I can jump high into the air! That I bark at potential intruders and guard our home! The problem, dear reader, is that my skills do not lie in the realm of photography, so I mostly have a blurry mess to share. Boh is right, though. He does appear very energetic in these photos.

I took about 43 other photos, all of them blurry.

I’m sorry, Boh, for not thinking about how I have been representing you. (I listened to the RadioLab “Animal Minds” episode last night while working on my snowbird, and I am certainly aware of my own anthropomorphizing here…)

Also, lest you think I only knit, and do not work, here’s what Boh and I have been up to this morning:

Yep, the semester has begun. Sigh.

light/tunnel.

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Yesterday it was cold enough for me to wear my Stripes! Yay! I’ve put it on a few times since I finished it over the summer (as you know) to admire it, but it hasn’t really been cold enough for me to do more than wear it for ten minutes in the morning. Yesterday, though, it snowed much of the day, and the temperature was well under freezing. It’s cold again today, so the first thing I did when I got out of bed was pull on Stripes! (Well, and pull on pants over my also very stripey long underwear. Too much information?) See that second picture? That’s me hugging myself. This sweater makes me want to curl up with Boh.

Particularly when it’s like this outside:

This sweater also helped me to provisionally conclude my writing project. I’m going to read it again today, and then turn it in for comments. Last night, I filled that first bobbin with most of the first braid of Pigeonroof Studios fiber:

Today’s plan? Grade one last paper, sit down with the calculator and figure out my students’ grades for the semester, and read through my draft one more time. Hence the title of this post.

Thanks for all of your encouragement this week. Here’s hoping that the light appears soon for you guys, no matter what kind of deadlines you’re dealing with!

“no licking library books.”

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So now they are almost all on the table.

When I hear myself saying things like “Boh, no licking library books!” I realize that this dog and I really are kindred spirits. I spent a semester or two cataloguing acquisitions in my college library’s dungeon-like basement, and I think the experience solidified my love of the library smell: you know, that musty, secret, layered, hidden whiff of something you just have to learn more about that hits you as you walk through the stacks. Boh clearly likes the smell of old books, too. Which is a good thing, because we’re surrounded by them.

My mom’s Multnomah shawl has entered blob stage, and I think the SWTC bamboo is knitting up beautifully. I’m a few rows from beginning the feather and fan lace, according to the pattern, but I think I might just keep increasing until it feels substantial enough — maybe until I get to the second ball of yarn.

Back to the kitchen table, once I make room for my laptop.

two weeks?

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This is the beginning of Multnomah, a gorgeous garter and feather and fan shawl that I intend to make for myself someday. This version, though, is for my mom, and as she has some kind of wool sensitivity or allergy, I’m knitting it out of SWTC bamboo. This stuff is so shiny and drapey — perfect for a shawl. I’m just hoping I can get this knitted by Christmas Eve!

Also, thanks for all of your comments and emails about productivity — I made some good progress yesterday, and I finally have a better idea of where this project is going, at least for now.

I did want to clarify that I quite enjoy the organizational parts of writing: gathering books, making notes, arranging and rearranging, both physically and on the screen… For me, the pretend part is when I allow myself to stay comfortably in this category of organizational/planning tasks in order to avoid dealing with the central questions I haven’t quite figured out how to address in whatever it is I’m working on. I think sometimes I use this as a sort of mental crutch — and now that I write that down, I realize it sounds pretty nerdy. Organization is my crutch! (Would it sound cooler and more writerly if I added: “and whiskey” to that?)

Back to it!

sleeping in.

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I turned off the alarm last night so that Boh and I could sleep in — both a reward for some good progress on a paper I’m working on, and preparation for more writing today. (I tend to wake up with the sun whether I want to or not, but today I managed to sleep until 8. Victory.)

This dog did not want to get out of bed.

I managed a few more inches on my third handspun seaman’s cap. This one is made from Southern Cross Fibres polwarth 2-ply in the Boogie Wonderland colorway, and I just love how it is knitting up.

I am feeling way behind on life: thank you notes, holiday gifts, letter-writing, even cooking through my farm share (my winter share starts Wednesday!) — but at this very moment, I’m actually in an okay place with my academic work, and if I can just maintain that, I will be very happy. (Which means I need to get started on today’s writing goal — another 5 pages?)

silence.

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“The creosote and tar smell of the railroad tracks woke him from the dreaming. The cinders made hollow crunching noises under his boots. He had come a long way with them; but it was his own two feet that got him there.” — Leslie Marmon Silko, Ceremony (1976) (My version is Penguin, 2006, p. 236.)

prewittrr

Do you ever read something that just takes everything out of you? I didn’t intend to just stop posting, but I read Ceremony this week and it stirred up a lot of things that I’ve been processing. Powerful books can be almost incapacitating. (This is good. Also, hard.)

boh knit corner

Boh started to worry about the knitting pile. He told me so.

bracken prog inc

As you can see, I’m making progress on Bracken. (You can also see that this Jo Sharp Classic DK wool seems to attract Boh hair.)

messy dumplings

I made myself a plate of very messy dumplings last night — the only wrappers I could find this week were enormous! I overfilled a few, and they ruptured in the cooking process…but they were still incredibly delicious.

cloud complex

(A few pictures from 2007 seemed appropriate, given Ceremony‘s mostly southwestern setting.)

kind of a big deal.

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Nope, no pigtails yet. And nope, I didn’t finish my plain and simple pullover, though I do have progress to share.

Yesterday was kind of a big deal for me because I gave my first-ever lecture. I’ve done a fair amount of talking in front of people before, and I generally don’t mind it once I get going, but there was something different about this, in terms of the significance of the opportunity: this was a chance to do the thing I want to do, a chance to practice a big part of the career I’m working towards, and I was really nervous. I worried about all the usual things: that I’d talk too fast, that it wouldn’t go well, or worse — that I wouldn’t like it.

I still have a lot to think about in terms of planning and pacing a lecture, and quite a bit to learn, but I did enjoy myself yesterday, and the students even laughed at my jokes. And there won’t ever be a “first” lecture again — just a “next” one.

Onward to my pullover progress:

plain and simple front st1

plain and simple front st close up

Under Boh’s watchful eye, I finished the body, and moved on to the next step in the pattern, which involves working the front stitches back and forth. I panicked, thinking that there was no way I had a set of size 2 straight needles, but some digging through my vintage lot of aluminum needles (an ebay acquisition born of my new-knitter excitement a few years ago) yielded a mismatched pair.

plain and simple boh supervise1

plain and simple boh supervise2

As you all noted, Boh takes his job very, very seriously. I wish he’d step up and supervise the huge pile of grading I have to get through today…

equilibrium.

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cmf grey corriedale

cmf brown bfl

Believe it or not, I’ve been spinning faster than I’ve been stashing fiber. (The rate I’m knitting my handspun? That’s another story, but I’m working on it.)

Anyway, Chris over at Doodles In String has been encouraging me to spin for a sweater, and her kind enabling, in addition to last week’s realization that I had spun more than I had left to spin, required immediate action. On Saturday, I ordered a pound and a half each of grey corriedale and brown bfl from Crown Mountain Farms, and it was here on Monday afternoon. A few bumps of fiber are on their way here from places further afield, but I do feel that I am much closer to stash equilibrium now. Phew!

targheebob2

targheebob2dog

I spun up the second bobbin of AVFKW targhee in the Hibiscus colorway last night, (note the lazy dog in the background) and I’m hoping to start plying before I head to class this morning. Apparently this particular blend of reds and oranges routinely speaks to me: the throw on the couch above Boh is the same mixture of colors, and this morning, I put on my sassymmetrical cardigan, only to realize that I knit it in a very similar shade of malabrigo.

sassymmetrical in action

closeupsassymmetrical

I love this sweater, but I rarely wear it out of the house. I think this is because of a mixture of several factors: (a) it is bright (b) I don’t have a lot that seems to look “right” under it (c) cap sleeves in practice aren’t the most flattering on me (though I love them in theory) and (d) the texture and variegation of the malabrigo in this particular incarnation make it look hand-knit in a way that makes me a little self-conscious. Does that make sense?

Despite all this, I’m wearing it today, and it is making me happy.

simpleyeteffectiveblob

Lastly, my simple yet effective shawl is growing. It’s the wrong color family for today’s post, but I can’t get over how much I like the way this is knitting up. I’m thinking I may keep going once I run out of handspun and continue with some commercial yarn leftovers to give it a more finished edge.

This post’s title is also apt because I think I’m getting closer to a routine: I’ve made lists of my personal and academic priorities for this semester, mapped out a tentative breakdown for working at home with Boh vs. working in my office, and I’m feeling okay about it all. I guess it is about time to stop planning my work and get to it!

feeling antsy.

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I’m not exactly sure why — maybe because it is early enough in the semester that I don’t quite have a routine yet, maybe because getting back into this particular mode of being is a bit of a struggle — but last night I felt just plain antsy, like I should be getting things done, even though I was tired. I think one of the reasons there is such crossover between the land of knitters and academia is that knitting is a way to see what you are producing, to hold it in your hands. Sometimes, even though there is a pile of reading staring at me, I just need to really see my own progress on something slightly more tangible.

belleprogsleeve

Hence, my baby belle. I just have the sleeves and the button band left to do, and I love how this is turning out. Also:

hhocksplied

I plied the bobbins of the green falklands fiber in the hollyhock colorway together, and set the twist.

hhockskein

hhockcloseup

110 yards of 2-ply, from 2 oz. of fiber. You may recall that the other half of this bump is pale pinks and purples. I may have spun up the remaining 2 oz. before bed last night…

purpleshock

I’m taking a class that is exciting to me, although it is out of my field — and out of my comfort zone. I may ply the rest of the hollyhocks falklands fiber this morning in preparation  — the fibery equivalent of a few deep breaths?

back to school.

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back to school1

back to school2

The “back to school” photo was always a big deal in my house. Every year, my brother and I would pose by the fireplace, or in front of the flowers in the yard, with backpacks on our backs and awkward smiles on our faces. These pictures are today’s version of that tradition — and yes, I just emailed them to my mom.