Are not very fun. I long for the day when I’m not sitting here in a cube farm, listening to everyone whine and complain about the security clearance system, all day long. I mean, yes it’s frustrating to not have a clearance, but calling the clearance department every single day makes them dislike you very much. Probably enough to just let your paperwork sit on their desk another month or two. Sometimes you just have to let go and realize that you can’t control everything, and make the best of your situtation. Especially when you find out that the clearance department lost a bunch of your paperwork, and you’ve been waiting 4 months for nothing. Simple things that I do to help me to not stress out about working in an “uncleared” farm (cough leper colony cough):
Listen to my iPod: My favorite, since music can have a very calming effect on me. This also helps me drown out the incessant conversations of my cube mates. They can’t seem to be quiet and keep to themselves…how can they be real engineers and be so social? * (See obligatory engineer joke at bottom of post) And the upside is that I can actually have my iPod right now. When I become cleared and am no longer ostracized from engineering society, my iPod will not be allowed to accompany me into the “cleared” area.
Drink Lots of TaB: Really, like a whole bunch. In fact, my stock is dwindling, and on last trip to Raley’s it wasn’t restocked yet. :(
Take Periodic Sunshine Breaks: This is just good advice if you’re an engineer period. Sometimes us nerds have a tendency to sit in front of the computer a bit too long, and not actually go out into the sun. And it helps clear your head to get up every few hours to stretch and get some fresh air.
Obsessively Compulsively Check Knitting Blogs: Sometimes the lack of work and the boredom begins to set in, and the best remedy I’ve found is to go on a blog checking spree, seeing if any other people have knitted something amazing since the last 30 minutes since I last checked.
So those are the small ways in which I deal with little work frustrations. Do you have any tips for dealing with blabby cube mates?
As far as knitting goes, I’m almost done with this cabled purse for the artisan fair. The deadline is swiftly approaching, so I’ve been knitting a lot lately. Quite relaxing.
And finally, in “OMG! Stockpile Money!” news, I just discovered that Village Wools is having a huge inventory sale next month to prepare for the upcoming shop move. 15% off everything!!! This will be very bad for my wallet.
EDIT (Forgot the Engineer Joke! Thanks Joanna!):
So what’s the difference between an extroverted engineer, and an introverted engineer???
The extroverted engineer looks at your shoes, while the introverted engineer looks at his shoes. Ba-dum-chi!
Since the Dye-O-Rama deadline approaches nearer everyday, I decided that it was time to start working on schooling myself in the art of yarn dyeing. So I headed over to my friendly local yarn store to pick up the necessary supplies. I got some powdered acid dye, some white superwash sock yarn and stopped to pick up some koolaid on the way home.
After going through some of the tutorials on the Dye-O-Rama blog, I decided to start with the koolaid first. I picked up Grape, Cherry and Orange and went to town. After soaking a small hank of yarn in water and vinegar, I put it in a glass container and soaked the tied off sections with the dye. Well, there was quite a bit of pooling of the 3 colors, which turned the final product fairly brown. I like some sections of it, and some of the colors that came out I’m not so wild about. But I learned a lot about separating out the sections of yarn, so I think it will come out a lot better next time.
Here’s a couple of pictures, and if you want to see the rest, check out the set in my flickr photostream.
So I’ve been a slacker and I was looking through my e-mails and realized that I hadn’t posted the Dye-O-Rama Meme yet! Oops! I suppose in all the confusion I completely forgot that I get to start teaching myself some yarn dyeing skills soon, so I can send someone some sweet hand-dyed yarn. I think I’m going to use my day off this Friday to spend some time at Village Wools stocking up on the necessary tools and mess making equipment.
Anyway, the meme’s kinda long, so continue on if you dare…Muhahaha!
Continue reading ‘Dye-o-Meme-a-Rama!’
I totally kicked the GRE’s butt today, and I’m pretty psyched about that. I got well above the minimum scores to get into UNM, and am very pleased with the results. I suppose all those times I risked my life by reviewing flash cards while driving really paid off ;) Also, we had our final senior design presentations yesterday and that went really well too. My teammate who usually freaks out (she forgot my name during the last presentation) actually did very well and kept her composure, and everyone else in our group did well too.
And the official countdown is: only 4 days of classes left! I can’t believe that in one week I’ll have completed 4 years of college education. I really not to think about it too hard, I might explode or something, and that would be unfortunate.
So to relax a little bit after the GRE today, Mom and I headed out to Village Wools and I helped her pick out some new yarn for a this really cool garden purse. She wanted a small summery bag to carry around, and since she’s the gardening queen, we thought it was perfect. Scout helped convince her too :)
Anyway, that’s about all there is to report…I’m still chugging along on my 2nd sock, at a much higher rate of speed now, thanks to the magic loop technique. I’m hoping to finish that soon, so that I can start on my Topi, cause I’m excited to do that project.
Well, I’m off to go listen to some live music at Alibi’s Spring Crawl now! And to round off the post, here’s an old picture of me and Emma, it’s one of my favorites :)
“I’m so excited, and I just can’t hide it! I know, I know, I know, I know, I finished one sock, one sock!” -Pointer Sisters (with liberal adaptions :))
And it actually fits! The only thing I should have done is make the cuff longer, but I got impatient with it. I really like the colors, and it’s very comfy, not to mention warm! I noticed it’s a lot warmer than my standard cotton socks. And I’ve cast on for the 2nd sock, using magic loop this time, and I like it a lot more. It’s just so much faster, especially since the loops are flexible and there’s no poking :) And I splurged on some Addi Turbos, and boy are those puppies quick! So I’m hoping to have this sock done a lot sooner (the 1st one took me forever). I’m starting to understand the appeal of sock knitting, it can be quite enjoyable.
In other knitting news, Scout opened a shop online! All her sweet sock yarn is gone now, but I’m sure she’s dyeing away like mad. It’s like your friendly LYS, but online! (wow, that’s quite a cliche’d sentence) So go buy some yarn when there’s more, I sure will!
Finally, there are only 4 more days of class!!! Next Friday I will be free! And then in only one week, I’ll be wearing a cap and gown and walking down the lawn at Brown Hall. Yippee! Then I won’t have to squat here in the EE lab and listen to the Lab TA suck his girlfriend’s lips off all morning. Gross!
